Political Economy of Dispossession and Economic Change: A Case of Rajarhat in West Bengal, India

Abstract

Land dispossession under the neoliberal capitalist development has become a focal point of debate across Indian states, particularly in West Bengal. Based on household surveys conducted in Rajarhat in West Bengal (India) in 2009 and 2016, this article illuminates how a large-scale dispossession of farmers from land for a neoliberal planned urban centre adjoining Kolkata Metropolis leads to a process of economic change and rural transformation, giving birth to diverse non-farm livelihood activities for the dispossessed households. While access to these new livelihood opportunities in the burgeoning urban economy turns out to be unequal, the dispossessed households broadly undergo upward economic mobility. It also argues that the benefits of speculative land value arising from neoliberalisation of spaces in the post-acquisition stage actuate the partially dispossessed households to sell off their remaining land and produce a basis for social differentiations and asset inequalities within the dispossessed households. To prevent these and similar outcomes, it calls for apt policies.