Books by Deepak K Mishra
Much ink has been spilled on poverty measurements and trends, at the expense of revealing causali... more Much ink has been spilled on poverty measurements and trends, at the expense of revealing causality. Assembling multi-disciplinary and international contributions, this book shows that a causal understanding of poverty in rich and poor countries is essential. That understanding must be based on a critical interrogation of the wider social relations which set up the mechanisms producing poverty as an outcome. Processes that widen/strengthen crisis-ridden market relations, that increase income/wealth inequality, and that ‘enhance’ the policy-biases of nation-states and international institutions toward the affluent-propertied strata cause global poverty and undermine poor people’s political power. The processes concentrating wealth-creation are poverty-causing processes. Through theoretical and empirical analyses this volume offers important insights and political prescriptions to address global poverty.
Contributors are:Raju J. Das, Deepak K. Mishra, Steven Pressman, Michael Roberts, Jamie Gough, Aram Eisenschitz, Anjan Chakravarty, Mizhar Mikati, Marcelo Milan, Tarique Niazi, John Marangos, Eirini Triarchi, Themis Anthrakidis, Macayla Kisten and Brij Maharaj, David Michael M. San Juan, and Thaddeus Hwong.
The Covid-19 pandemic has starkly exposed the plight of a vast number of migrants who had been su... more The Covid-19 pandemic has starkly exposed the plight of a vast number of migrants who had been surviving in the interstices of a highly segmented urban informal sector. This report has been prepared by a group of researchers to document the conditions of migrant workers and others during the pandemic in villages in five different states. These reports provide snapshots of life in rural India during what is emerging as a significant disruption of livelihood. The significant take away from these fragments of evidence includes the significance of labour migration in the rural livelihoods. The overall picture that emerges is that in the villages studied here, the flow of remittances has started to play a significant role in household consumption of those households who have a migrant member. The pandemic has affected the household economies in all the studied villages. Both cultivator and labour households have suffered severe loss of earnings and employment.
Deepak K. Mishra, Awadhesh Kumar, Bailochan Behera, Chandi Charan Mehentar, Dibya Nag, Jitendra Padhan, Krishna Surjya Das, Neela Madhaba Sheekha, Rakesh Kumar Yadav, Rukmini Thapa, Santosh Kumar Meher and Sudipta Sarkar (2020) Surviving the Pandemic: Ground Reports !om India’s Vi"ages, Bhubaneswar: Development Research Institute.
Mishra, Deepak K and P. Nayak (2020) (Edited) Land and Livelihoods in Neoliberal India, Singapore... more Mishra, Deepak K and P. Nayak (2020) (Edited) Land and Livelihoods in Neoliberal India, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.
The book discusses important developments emerging around the land questions in India in the context of India’s neoliberal economic development and its changing political economy. It covers many issues that have been impinging the political economy in land and livelihoods in India since the 1990s, examining the land question from diverse methodological standpoints. Most of the chapters rely on evidence generated through primary surveys in different parts of the country. The book, via its diversity of approaches and methodologies, brings out new and hitherto unexplored and/or less researched issues on the emerging land question in India. The range of issues addressed in the volume encompasses the contemporary developments in the political economy of land, land dispossession, SEZs, agrarian changes, urbanisation and the drive for the commodification of land across India. The authors also examine the role of the state in promoting the capitalist transformation in India and continuities and changes emerging in the context of land liberalisation and market-friendly economic reforms.
Rethinking Economic Development in Northeast India: The Emerging Dynamics, Feb 2, 2017
Economic development of frontier and remote regions has long been a central theme of development ... more Economic development of frontier and remote regions has long been a central theme of development studies. This book examines the development experience in the northeastern region in India in relation to the processes of globalisation and liberalisation of the economy. Bringing together researchers and scholars, from both within and outside the region, the volume offers a comprehensive and updated analysis of governance and development issues in relation to the northeastern economy. With its multidisciplinary approaches, the chapters cover a variety of sectors and concerns such as land, agriculture, industry, infrastructure, finance, human development, human security, trade and policy.
This volume addresses the impact of migration on society, highlighting the interlinkages between ... more This volume addresses the impact of migration on society, highlighting the interlinkages between individual and societal aspirations. It interrogates the role of the state and non-state agencies involved in various aspects of the life and livelihoods of migrant workers and provides a critical assessment of the policy frameworks and instruments affecting migration.
Focusing on the diverse aspects and types of internal migration, the book studies the exploitation and marginalization of migrants on the basis of class, caste, religion, gender, ethnicity and regional location in post-reform India.
As the Indian economy integrates into global circuits of production, exchange and accumulation, t... more As the Indian economy integrates into global circuits of production, exchange and accumulation, the burdens of adjustment are shared unequally by different sectors, classes and regions. This study unravels the livelihood strategies and living conditions of labour in the tea gardens of Assam. The tea sector has been undergoing a crisis since the 1990s, with stagnant production, decline in exports, and closures of many tea gardens leading to large-scale retrenchments in the labour force.
Based on a detailed analysis of secondary data and primary field research, the study examines the extent, types and implications of inter-generational occupational mobility (or immobility) among tea garden labourers in Assam. In the process, it reflects on how even a sector that had brought capital and labour from outside and contributed significantly to the country’s export earnings failed to create dynamic growth linkages within the local economy. The experience of the labour force in the Assam tea sector, the authors argue, is important for making sense not only of the development dynamics of the region, but of the contradictory ways in which forces of globalisation and neo-liberal reforms have been reshaping the worlds of labourers in the margins.
The book will be of interest to students and scholars of labour studies, development studies, management studies, and studies of north-east India, as well as to policy-makers and those in the tea industry.
Papers by Deepak K Mishra
Capitalist trajectories in agrarian mountain societies of east and south-east Arunachal, India
Journal of Agrarian Change, 2021
While the mountainous frontier regions of Arunachal have generated a literature celebrating their... more While the mountainous frontier regions of Arunachal have generated a literature celebrating their exceptional social diversity, less is known about Arunachal's rural political economy. Following village fieldwork in 2007 in northern districts, research in 2015 in East and South-east Arunachal enables two aspects of agrarian transformation to be explored. First a comparison of the institutional transformation of land-based resources between regions and over time. Second the identification of co-existing accumulation trajectories: the forms taken by rural accumulation when the engines of capital accumulation are non-agrarian transfers of state capital into the state and commercial capital originating outside the state, which exports profits. Since non-Arunachali people are not allowed to own property in Arunachal, local accumulation is dominated by a socially-segmented, multi-tribal, rentier class, interlaced with Indian and global capital through extractions from state resources and extractive commodity exchange. The state's three roles: security, developmental and welfare, support these ethnicised accumulation trajectories.
Developing the Border: The State and the Political Economy of Development in Arunachal Pradesh
Circular Labour Migration from Rural India: A Study of Out-Migration of Male Labour from West Bengal
Circular labour migration from rural areas has emerged as a key feature of the Indian economy. Ge... more Circular labour migration from rural areas has emerged as a key feature of the Indian economy. Generally seen as a positive development, because of its impact of remittances on the household economy of the migrants, circular migration has also been associated with exploitation and unfreedom of the migrant labour. This paper focuses on labour out-migration to the construction sector from one of the economically backward districts of West Bengal, India. Firstly, it examines who participates in this migration process and highlights the nature of such migration. Secondly, it explores the outcomes of labour migration focusing on both the economic as well as the social dimensions. Thirdly, these outcomes are linked with the broader debates on the migration–development linkages. This paper argues that rather than focusing on the short-term and static gains of out-migration, there is a need to investigate the long-term, life-cycle implications of such circular labour migration.
Woman and work in rural Assam: pattern and determinants
The interrelationship between women and work has been affected by the diversity of socio-economic... more The interrelationship between women and work has been affected by the diversity of socio-economic institutions. The impact of economic transformation on work participation is likely to be mediated through changing gender relations as well. This article attempts to look at the trend as well as the nature of job availability along with the underlying causation of female workforce participation in the rural areas of Assam. Regarding regional variations in female work participation, women in the eastern plains and districts with more tea plantations report higher levels of participation in work. In the article, instrumental variable probit estimation has been used to identify various household and individual characteristics that determine rural female workforce participation in the state. This analysis suggests that female workforce participation is the result of a complex interplay of various individual, household, social and economic factors. Further, the analysis reflects that the hi...
Nature of ‘Unfreedom’ among Migrants
Food Consumption Pattern in Rural India : A Regional Perspective
Since the economic transformation in early 1990s, India experienced a massive change in food cons... more Since the economic transformation in early 1990s, India experienced a massive change in food consumption pattern. There has been a decline in cereal especially coarse cereal intake whereas consumption of other food items (fruits, vegetables, meat products) has slightly increased particularly in rural India. These changes vary across socio-economic groups, which has implications for intergroup inequalities. This paper attempts to show food consumption pattern across selected social and economic groups and identifies food consumption regions in India. An attempt has also been done to show determinants of food item wise consumption pattern in rural India. The paper argues that such a disaggregated analysis brings out the diversity in food consumption patterns and helps identifying the socio-economic groups suffering from deprivations in food consumption.
Agrarian transformation in mountain economies
Rethinking Economic Development in Northeast India
Measuring Food Security through Dietary Diversity: Insights from a Field Survey in Rural Uttar Pradesh, India
The Indian Economic Journal
The discourse on food security in India has concentrated upon availability and accessibility of c... more The discourse on food security in India has concentrated upon availability and accessibility of cereals, neglecting the nutritional significance of fruits, vegetables and meat food products. This article attempts to assess the food security level both quantitatively and qualitatively, and level of dietary diversity among socio-economic groups. A cross sectional survey covering 304 households selected through stratified and proportional random sampling methods was conducted in six villages of Uttar Pradesh, India in 2013–2014. Household Food Insecurity Access Scale and Dietary Diversity approach were used to indicate food security. Subjective assessment highlights that despite sufficient availability of food, most of the households were unable to eat the quality of food they preferred. Findings also show predominant concentration of diet towards cereals, milk, root and tuber food products. Muslims, scheduled caste, labourers and households with lower wealth index consumed a less dive...
Agrarian Transformation and Changing Labour Relations in Kalahandi, Odisha
Journal of South Asian Development
Examining the changes in production relations in one of the poorest rainfed belts in India, this ... more Examining the changes in production relations in one of the poorest rainfed belts in India, this study, based on field surveys in eight villages in Kalahandi and Nuapada districts of Odisha, unravels the complexities of the transition in agriculture. The introduction of irrigation has resulted in, an increase in yield, wage rates and labour-use per hectare. Comparison between the irrigated and the non-irrigated villages also suggest a drastic reduction in poverty and distress seasonal out-migration. The average household income in the irrigated villages turns out to be more than three times that of the rainfed villages. Thus, irrigation has acted as a key driver of agrarian change, and its role in creating labour demand in agriculture continues to be significant. However, the reduced control of marginalised sections over land, the significance of sharecropping in the irrigated villages, the high share of family labour in total labour-use among the marginal and small cultivators in t...
Inclusiveness in India: a strategy for growth and equality
Contemporary South Asia, 2016
Review of 'Inclusiveness in India: a strategy for growth and equality', edited by... more Review of 'Inclusiveness in India: a strategy for growth and equality', edited by Shigemochi Hirashima, Hisaya Oda and Yuko Tsujita, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
Developing the Border
Borderland Lives in Northern South Asia, 2013
Reproduction of Informal Enterprises in India: A Study of the Sualkuchi Silk Handloom Cluster in Assam
Economic and Political Weekly, 2021
Das, Anamika and Mishra, Deepak K (2021) “Reproduction of Informal Enterprises in India: A Study ... more Das, Anamika and Mishra, Deepak K (2021) “Reproduction of Informal Enterprises in India: A Study of the Sualkuchi Silk Handloom Cluster in Assam”, Economic & Political Weekly, 56(37):52-59.
Informality and diversity of institutional forms have been marked as distinct features of India’s postcolonial capitalist development. The present paper considers the conditions of reproduction of informal enterprises, specifically focusing on the living and working conditions of artisan labour in the silk-weaving cluster of Sualkuchi in Assam. The study indicates that kinship, gender, and caste act as regulative forces, influencing the form and scale of production, ownership, contract, and exchange relations. The results point to the significance of non-capitalist institutional arrangement in the reproduction of the handloom sector under contemporary capitalism.
Orissa Economic Journal, 2020
This paper provides an overview of the debates on ‘agrarian questions’ from the perspective of th... more This paper provides an overview of the debates on ‘agrarian questions’ from the perspective of the changing agrarian scenario in India. The contemporary relevance of the agrarian questions, which have a long lineage in the political economy literature, has been evaluated through the lenses of primitive accumulation and agrarian differentiation. Linking the agrarian crisis in post-reform India to the neoliberal economic policies, it is argued here that a framework that considers the different regional trajectories of agrarian change, the uneven nature of the agrarian transitions is better suited to understand the ongoing processes of agrarian change in rural India.
Migrant Labour during the Pandemic: A Political Economy Perspective
Indian Economic Journal, 2021
This article aims to analyse the plight of the migrant workers in India during the Covid 19 pande... more This article aims to analyse the plight of the migrant workers in India during the Covid 19 pandemic from a political economy perspective. While taking note of the disruptions and uncertainties during the drastic lockdown that was announced suddenly, it is argued that the vulnerabilities of the migrant labour force are deeply embedded in the long-term changes in the political economy of development in India. These changes, on the one hand, have resulted in the gradual weakening of state support to the working classes, and on the other, have resulted in the normalisation of ‘cheap labour’ as a legitimate objective of neoliberal capitalist development. Locating the conditions of the migrant working class on the specificities of the manifold restructuring of the Indian economy under neoliberal globalisation, the study attempts to emphasise the structural dimensions of the current crisis faced by the migrant labourers.
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Books by Deepak K Mishra
Contributors are:Raju J. Das, Deepak K. Mishra, Steven Pressman, Michael Roberts, Jamie Gough, Aram Eisenschitz, Anjan Chakravarty, Mizhar Mikati, Marcelo Milan, Tarique Niazi, John Marangos, Eirini Triarchi, Themis Anthrakidis, Macayla Kisten and Brij Maharaj, David Michael M. San Juan, and Thaddeus Hwong.
Deepak K. Mishra, Awadhesh Kumar, Bailochan Behera, Chandi Charan Mehentar, Dibya Nag, Jitendra Padhan, Krishna Surjya Das, Neela Madhaba Sheekha, Rakesh Kumar Yadav, Rukmini Thapa, Santosh Kumar Meher and Sudipta Sarkar (2020) Surviving the Pandemic: Ground Reports !om India’s Vi"ages, Bhubaneswar: Development Research Institute.
The book discusses important developments emerging around the land questions in India in the context of India’s neoliberal economic development and its changing political economy. It covers many issues that have been impinging the political economy in land and livelihoods in India since the 1990s, examining the land question from diverse methodological standpoints. Most of the chapters rely on evidence generated through primary surveys in different parts of the country. The book, via its diversity of approaches and methodologies, brings out new and hitherto unexplored and/or less researched issues on the emerging land question in India. The range of issues addressed in the volume encompasses the contemporary developments in the political economy of land, land dispossession, SEZs, agrarian changes, urbanisation and the drive for the commodification of land across India. The authors also examine the role of the state in promoting the capitalist transformation in India and continuities and changes emerging in the context of land liberalisation and market-friendly economic reforms.
Focusing on the diverse aspects and types of internal migration, the book studies the exploitation and marginalization of migrants on the basis of class, caste, religion, gender, ethnicity and regional location in post-reform India.
Based on a detailed analysis of secondary data and primary field research, the study examines the extent, types and implications of inter-generational occupational mobility (or immobility) among tea garden labourers in Assam. In the process, it reflects on how even a sector that had brought capital and labour from outside and contributed significantly to the country’s export earnings failed to create dynamic growth linkages within the local economy. The experience of the labour force in the Assam tea sector, the authors argue, is important for making sense not only of the development dynamics of the region, but of the contradictory ways in which forces of globalisation and neo-liberal reforms have been reshaping the worlds of labourers in the margins.
The book will be of interest to students and scholars of labour studies, development studies, management studies, and studies of north-east India, as well as to policy-makers and those in the tea industry.
Papers by Deepak K Mishra
Informality and diversity of institutional forms have been marked as distinct features of India’s postcolonial capitalist development. The present paper considers the conditions of reproduction of informal enterprises, specifically focusing on the living and working conditions of artisan labour in the silk-weaving cluster of Sualkuchi in Assam. The study indicates that kinship, gender, and caste act as regulative forces, influencing the form and scale of production, ownership, contract, and exchange relations. The results point to the significance of non-capitalist institutional arrangement in the reproduction of the handloom sector under contemporary capitalism.