Paper short abstract:

The Indian development state derived authority by deeming its farmers as backward. How does it reorient itself to promote organic agriculture, which valorizes the farmers' traditional environmental knowledge? Can states overcome fears of ceding their agency to farmers in this new inclusive paradigm?

Paper long abstract:

Development states of the global south built their political legitimacy by claiming to be saviors of their "backward" citizens. How do they retain this legitimacy, now that the world increasingly sees such citizens as environmental stewards, guardians of local knowledge and principled opponents of neoliberal homogenization?

I explore the manifestation of this impasse in the promotion of organic agriculture in the Indian Himalayas by a government seeking political fame as an environmentalist pioneer. During the “green revolution”, third world states discursively positioned themselves as reeducating their socially, technologically backward farmers, who then ostensibly adopted modern, income and food security-boosting cultivation practices. Organic agriculture, as an alternative to this western, modernist engagement with nature, privileges the identity of pioneering farmers, seen as preserving local natural heritage against homogenizing, monoculture-imposing states. This transformation creates a conundrum for the Indian regional state of Sikkim. In 2016, to bolster its green-developmentalist credentials, the state barred its farmers from undertaking any non-organic cultivation. If – to draw maximum political mileage out of this conservation-and-development project – the regional government adopts a discourse of a pioneering state and its obedient farmers, it risks appearing autocratic and undemocratic. However, the alternative discourse of pioneering farmers and a supportive state underplays the state’s agentiveness, diminishing the political credit it gains from the bold initiative. Through discourse analysis and interviews with Sikkim’s officials and citizens, I analyze the mediation of this impasse – as indicative of a larger implicit tension over claims of leadership and innovation in green developmentalism.