Mukulika Banerjee, "Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Dec 28, 2024

Mukulika Banerjee, a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, discusses her book on democracy in agrarian India. She emphasizes that democracy extends beyond elections to everyday practices in rural communities. Through her ethnographic research, she reveals how solidarity and rituals foster democratic values among villagers. Banerjee argues that even as procedural democracy faces challenges, grassroots practices keep its spirit alive. Her insights highlight the resilience of democracy shaped by local cultures and social interactions.

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Intro

00:00 • 6min

Democracy and Agrarian Practices in India

05:44 • 10min

Cultivating Democracy: The Agrarian Connection

15:49 • 6min

Rebalancing Power and Politics in West Bengal's Agrarian Landscape

22:12 • 5min

Connecting Local Insights to National Political Trends

27:09 • 2min

Rituals and Democracy in Agrarian India

29:14 • 33min

Cultivating Democracy: Politics and Citizenship in Agrarian India (Oxford UP, 2021) by Dr. Mukulika Banerjee offers a groundbreaking rethinking of democracy, moving beyond its institutional frameworks to focus on its lived, everyday dimensions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the villages of Madanpur and Chishti in India, the book examines how agrarian communities cultivate democratic values—solidarity, reciprocity, and ethical citizenship—through practices embedded in their daily lives. Dr. Banerjee challenges conventional notions of democracy as confined to elections and state institutions, instead presenting it as a process deeply rooted in cultural-social practices and values. She highlights how rural communities, through cooperation in agriculture, rituals, festivals, and even moments of conflict and repair, create and sustain the democratic spirit. In doing so, the book underscores the resilience of these practices, even as procedural democracy faces erosion under broader political and economic pressures. At its core, Cultivating Democracy compels us to reimagine democracy not as an abstract ideal but as a lived and ongoing project shaped by the rhythms of everyday life. Through its rich ethnographic detail and theoretical insight, the book offers profound lessons on the fragility and strength of democracy, making it both a deeply scholarly and urgently relevant work.

Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the intersections of caste, religiosities, performances, sacred geographies, and the state, as informing/informed by colonial and postcolonial mobilities and circulatory regimes across South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific research interests, his disciplinary interests revolve across anthropology, linguistics, literature, and the digital humanities. When not reading or writing in the university library, Rounak can be found running along Newark's trails and petting the canines he meets along the way.

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