The Land Question in India

Anthony P. D'Costa is Chair and Professor of Contemporary Indian Studies at the University of Melbourne. He has published on the political economy of development, global capitalism, inequality, and industrial restructuring using the steel, auto, and IT sectors. His books include International Mobility, Global Capitalism, and Changing Structures of Accumulation: Transforming the Japan-India IT Relationship (2016), Transformation and Development: The Political Economy of Transition in India and China (2012); Globalization and Economic Nationalism in Asia (2012); and After-Development Dynamics: South Korea's Contemporary Engagement with Asia (2015), all published by Oxford University Press. He has held fellowships from Fulbright-Hays, American Institute of Indian Studies, Korea Foundation, Japan Foundation, and POSCO at the East West Center.Achin Chakraborty is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata (IDSK), engaged in teaching, research, and research guidance in the areas of welfare economics, development economics, and methodology. Before joining IDSK as a Professor in 2004 he had been an Associate Professor at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, India. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of California at Riverside. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals including Economic Theory, Social Indicators Research, Journal of Quantitative Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Indian Economic Review, and Economic and Political Weekly.

• PART I: PRIMITIVE AND CONTEMPORARY ACCUMULATION; PART II: LEGAL-INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSIONS OF 'REGIMES OF DISPOSSESSION'; PART III: REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES

This book offers a rich fare for all students of social change not only in India but also for the majority of developing countries in the world. It provides theoretical perspectives on Marx's idea of primary accumulation, which is another name for acquisition by dispossessionwhich is an ongoing process. The authors provide theoretical insights into why in most developing countries, including India, this process does not lead to a transition to a dynamic capitalist development. All the chapters are based on hard empirical data on the means of coercion, including legal sleights of hand, used by the state in favour of capital.