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Accepted Paper:

Development as a strategy in the struggle over "Gorkhaland"  
Miriam Wenner (University of Zurich)

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to display the utilization of the idea and promise of development by state and non-state actors in order to further their territorial claims in the context of statehood movements in India.

Paper long abstract:

Statehood movements in India aim at redrawing political boundaries that define who exercises control over territories. Territory and control over it form focal points in the struggle over space and its organisation. In order to maintain or (re-)gain control over these claimed territories various state and non-state actors employ different strategies including the visible presentation of force e.g. in form of armed groups, or the appropriation of space through symbols such as flags and banners. This paper proposes that also the idea and promise of "development" as presented in the rhetoric of the conflicting actors is one main means to (re)gain control over the claimed territories. The district Darjeeling in northern West Bengal is such a contested space where the "Gorkhas" aim at the creation of a separate Union state "Gorkhaland". A two years long agitation led by one of the Gorkhaparties that drew on a boycott of taxes, the enforcement of strikes, and the violent silencing of political opponents has resulted in what some have called an "absence" of the state. The perceived "lack of development" thereby served as legitimation and mobilization strategy for the statehood demand. This paper focuses on the ways the West Bengal Government attempts to reenter this seemingly "state-less" space through the promise and rhetoric of development and how the creation of a developmental semi-autonomous body for the district and its projects are experienced on the ground, including the question about who the winners and losers of this promised "development" are.

Panel P09
Developing control: the reconfiguration of space and the making of development on the ground
  Session 1