Lukose EmptyCitizenshipProtesting 2005

Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization
Author(s): Ritty Lukose

Source: Cultural Anthropology , Nov., 2005, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Nov., 2005), pp. 506-533
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Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in
the Era of Globalization
Ritty Lukose
University of Pennsylvania
During the mid-1990s, while conducting fieldwork among college students in the
Indian state of Kerala, I would walk to the college daily from the nearby student
hostel where I lived only to find it closed and largely empty, a situation that was to
last for months. Kerala was touted to be the "education miracle." Its nearly 100-
percent rates of literacy and high mass participation of both boys and girls at all
levels of education had become exemplary of the "Kerala model" of development.1
However, as part of a larger mobilization of students and political parties against
economic liberalization policies begun in the early 1990s, student strikes had closed
the college in protest over government attempts to privatize higher education by
authorizing the expansion of privately funded colleges. At the end of the first day,
after most of the students had left, the teachers were still hanging about, reading
the newspapers or gossiping. Unlike the students, they could not leave if they
wanted to be paid. Shaking her head as she watched a political procession (jatha)
of mostly male students move through the corridors, shouting "Inquilab Zindabad"
(Long Live the Revolution), she laughed and said cynically, "it's not democracy,
its demo-crazy."
This article is an exploration of the emptied college and its relationship to
concepts of citizenship in contemporary India. Educational institutions are often
understood to be key spaces for constituting modem public spheres and central to
the production of citizens in modem nation-states.2 Over the last century, within
Kerala's developing narrative of modernity, this public has come to be understood
as a "political public," driven by the political agency of revolutionary or revolu-
tionizing young men. Education has become a key space (among others) for the
constitution of this "political public," as well as its object, in ways that express gen-
dered and generational practices of inclusion and exclusion. Girls and women have
been included to a very high degree in the public places of work in Kerala's highly
touted educational system while also being excluded from this "political public."
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 20, Issue 4, pp. 506-533, ISSN 0886-7356, electronic ISSN 1548-1360.
? 2005 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions
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506

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PROTESTING POLITICS 507
My aim is to examine what happens to the politics and practices

democratic citizenship in an educational setting that is being newly r
a commodity under the neoliberal economic reforms that constitute
focusing specifically on the politics of privatization. By privatizat
set of discourses and policies that portray the state as pitted against
which the state is understood to be "public" and the market is und
"private."3 Although privatization arguments often hinge on discour
of services, supply, and demand, I argue that what is most at stake in
privatization are competing notions of the public and meanings of c
In Kerala, as elsewhere, transformations associated with globali
often indexed by the expansion of the market economy and a consu
often at the expense of state-centric formulations of politics and ci
bates about privatization usually revolve around two competing arg
the one hand, some herald privatization as the engine of economic
prosperity, relieving states and citizens of the draining effects of l
reaucracies and inefficiencies. On the other hand, those who oppose
argue that the withdrawal of the state from social services and the con
of consumption and market ideology lead to increasing inequality. W
missed in these debates are the ways in which claims are made on
both sides of this debate. Moreover, although both positions target
little attention is paid to how discourses of consumption work to rec
tics, citizenship, and democracy. This reconfiguration is the subject o
I examine the state-market nexus that structures the educational fie
tracking the persistent yet transformed understandings of the relation
private and public through which the meanings and functions of edu
izenship are debated and struggled over. In particular, I pay attention
about "politics" that pervade college life in Kerala as a key site wher
is being reformulated through discourses of consumerism.
To track the relationship between privatization and citizenship, I
contemporary trajectory of a historically important masculinist "po
in Kerala as it intersects with multiple understandings of the "private"
demonstrate their mutual and changing entanglements.4 This entails
dense connections between Kerala's postcolonial political and educat
tories, given the centrality of educational spaces and students to th
of this political public. The contemporary contestations that mark
field within Kerala reveal a struggle over the meaning of democra
that opposes a political public, rooted in a tradition of anticolonial
postcolonial nationalist politics, to that of a "civic public," rooted
efficiency and freedom to consume through the logic of privatizati
between the civic and the political has been given renewed salience
cent work of Partha Chatterjee (1998, 2000, 2004).5 The term civil so
Chatterjee to mark that domain of organizations and norms of beha
understood to conform to bourgeois Western, and secularized Christ

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508 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
associational life, while pointing to another domain, "political socie

other, nonelite practices of mobilization and participation in eng
the state run counter to the norms of civil society. My discussio
opposed to a political-public resonates with this distinction, which
However, I am less interested in a conception of political society t
of the domain of civil society than in the ways in which notions of t
political confront each other within an already constituted public s
Drawing on extensive work on the public-private dichotomy in fe
arship, I suggest that the public that grounds the confrontation be
and the political is grounded in masculine forms of sociality and mo
sion between the freedom to occupy and traverse public spaces in
of both a "civic public" and a "political public" is grounded, I argue
masculinities that are class inflected.
Further, I mark this contemporary moment of neoliberalism by demonstrating

how this "civic public," which Chatterjee links to the emergence of middle-class
bourgeois nationalism during the colonial period, articulates with discourses of
consumption that are tied to notions of the freedom of the market. The "private
consumer" lays claim to the state by trying to construct a civic public, based on
notions of efficiency and orderliness, in opposition to a political public, deemed to
be unruly, disruptive, and sometimes violent, in ways that are reconfiguring politics,
democracy, and citizenship under conditions of globalization. Explicit discourses
about "politics" (rashtriyam), its limits and characteristics, point to the ways in
which self-conscious political activity among students is situated within a wider
social field of gender and generational practices that structure this confrontation
between a civic and a political public. In particular, these discourses mark the ways
in which notions of citizenship are tied to anticolonial and postcolonial notions of
politics and how they intersect with neoliberal conceptions of consumption.
To comprehend the reconfiguration of politics and citizenship within this new
moment of globalization, a focus on discourses of consumption is centrally im-
portant. Within the Indian context, several formulations have marked the rise of
consumption as a new terrain for the reconfiguration of citizenship in the globaliz-
ing 1990s, supplanting the national developmental citizen of the postindependence
Nehruvian state (Breckenridge 1995; Deshpande 1993; Niranjana 1991, 1999). The
anthropology of globalization has also been marked by a focus on consumption
(Appadurai 1996; Ong 1999).6 The centrality of consumption as a site for the ex-
ploration of globalization dovetails with the growing influence of cultural studies
(Hall and Jefferson 1976; Hebdige 1981; McRobbie 1991; Miller 1991) within
anthropology that has also privileged consumption as an object of cultural analy-
sis. Much work in the cultural studies and anthropology of consumption has been
devoted to exploring this hitherto undervalued and neglected domain of social life,
arguing its importance for understanding identity formation under the intersect-
ing frames of colonialism, nationalism, and capitalism (Burke 1996; Hendrickson
1996; Tarlo 1996).

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Rather than viewing consumption as a naturalized set of soc

that needs to be examined and deciphered, I would like to begin by
the space of consumption itself as something that needs to be acti
through discourse, practice, and imagination (Appadurai 1996:42). A
Chua states for East Asia, much theorization and research on consum
on identity politics and comes out of an argument about the import
sumption vis-h-vis debates about cultural distinction within the E
context (2000:19). Although the politics of identity and cultural di
certainly at stake in consumer practices globally, especially for the c
of youth, the cultural-ideological context within which that politics
has distinct histories in different locations. A focus on discourses of
reveals the specificity of these contexts, particularly when the polit
and cultural distinction are linked to discourses of citizenship and po
the privatization debates in Kerala, discourses of consumption inse
into dense narratives of politics emerging out of the cultural and ideol
of postcolonial states struggling with the legacy of colonialism an
nationalism as they intersect with a new global order. The terrain of
as "social practice" or "everyday life" operates in and through these p
Joan Vincent has recently remarked on a new engagement wit
of citizenship within anthropology (2002). The framework of citizen
come a lens through which to explore the changing and dynamic p
sovereignty, belonging, and politics at the interface between natio
transnational movements of capital, labor, media, and commoditie
2002). This approach has expanded the notion of what constitutes th
main of citizenship. Although a conventional legal definition of citi
on political rights and obligations with respect to a sovereign state, a
have emphasized the ambiguities of citizenship as these are lived in
politics of everyday life (Holston and Appadurai 1999; Ong 1999). A
expansion of citizenship beyond the boundaries of the officially pol
ful and salutary move in studies of citizenship, I have found it us
definitions of "the political"-more specifically, the how, what, whe
of the political-to understand changing conceptions of citizenship
2002; Butler 1992; Comaroff and Comaroff 2000).7 I examine a
discourse of politics and its limits in and through various spaces o
focusing on the politics of privatization in a college institution est
lower-caste students.
The Public in Kerala
Tracing a genealogy of the public in Kerala helps to illuminate how

politics of privatization is playing out in educational spaces. In July 19
a group of middle-class businessmen belonging to a consumer organizat
staged a jatha down Mahatma Gandhi Road in front of the State Secretariat

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Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city. Unlike most political proces

they did not march on foot but drove cars, motorbikes, and scoo
cause they had the financial means to do so but, more pointedly,
assert their "right to use the roads." This was part of a larger mob
tiate what they called an "anti-bandh culture" in the state (Indian
Bandh is a commonly used Hindi word that literally means "closed," b
more specifically to a general strike, usually called by a political p
workplaces, schools, colleges, transportation, and shops come to a
petition was also filed before Kerala's High Court asking that a c
be issued against the frequent bandhs initiated by political parties.
was not initially successful, the Kerala Supreme Court officially ba
1997, and later that year, this ruling was upheld by the Supreme Co
2003, another petition was filed before the Kerala Supreme Court a
government and various other organizations were getting around t
by renaming bandhs as hartals (Hindu 2003a). The word hartal is of
changeably with bandh, although it usually refers to a strike that is c
a more delimited form of protest in duration and scope. The petitione
president of an organization called the International Society for th
of Human Rights and the Rule of Law, argued that bandhs or harta
chose to name them, violated the rights of citizens based on the const
to "equal protection" and the "right to life."
A conference was organized in the city of Kochi to promote th
culture under the auspices of the Consumer Protection Magazine
ganization called the Kochi City Vigilance. Conference speakers co
violence done to people and property under the "cover of democr
Several pointed to the fact that at one time, general strikes were
genuinely expressed the "will of the people." They drew a distincti
genuine use of bandhs and hartals during the independence movem
abuse in postindependence India. The general strike in 1907 to prote
nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak by British authorities was
Mahatma Gandhi's fasting and noncooperation movement was "no
day's bandhs "victimized the public" and "[were] no credit to civi
Conference speakers cited the large sums of money lost because of
age and the undermining of the work ethos caused by lost workin
observe bandhs by not going to work or school and by closing dow
cause they always approve of the protest but often because of fear
forcing people to stay indoors, bandhs are not an expression of de
but end up violating the people's "fundamental right to move about
the "anti-bandh" jatha to drive the public roads of Thiruvananthapu
the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) led by the Kerala Cong
chastised for not doing enough to prevent the bandhs, the blame
placed on the left parties. Veteran Communist leader E. M. S. Nam
who was the leader of Left Democratic Front (LDF) headed by the

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Party of India-Marxist (CPI-[M]) that was the opposition party at t

back that bandhs were an expression of the people's fundamental r
and that to ban them was "fascist" (Hindu 1994). Whether they wer
he averred, such agitations would always take place. Asked about t
associated with strikes, he stated that it was a part of the struggle i
he contended, during the freedom movement many had lost their l
This rather striking contestation about the forms of Kerala's po
brings to light a set of cultural and political struggles tied to notion
in which the space of politics (rashtriyam) is mostly understood t
by the left. At one level, this speaks to the history of Kerala as a b
communist movement in India. Therefore, many people in Kerala b
be critical of politics is to be critical of the left, and to be critical o
be critical of politics. In this way, the politics of anti-politics is ma
of political distinctions between left and right,8 pitting middle-clas
whose use of the roads is illuminated by the headlights of their ca
against the ordinary folk (sadharannakar) who walk on foot and c
torches.9
One way of gesturing toward the history of what one might ca

public in Kerala is by looking at the history of the jatha as a mod
protest. The Punjabi word entered the political vocabulary of Malaya
language, in the 1920s, when a jatha of supporters came from the
the Vaikom Satyagraha, a pivotal moment in the struggle to cons
itarian public in Kerala (Menon 1994).10 This nonviolent struggle
challenged the caste-based geography of space whereby lower cast
enter the temple or walk the roads around it. The protest pitted a not
Hindu nationalist community, defined in largely upper-caste terms
regulations based on exclusion (Menon 1994). Caste regulations
not only untouchability but unapproachability' '-regulating the visi
tance between caste bodies-were challenged by the jatha, in which
different castes marched together, traversing caste-based understan
to produce an egalitarian public space. The jatha became a potent p
in the 1930s during agitations over temple entry, salt marches, pea
and various forms of civil disobedience. They challenged very spe
of body, mobility, and place around temples, but they were also c
production of Kerala as a regional identity. An important series of
a regional cartography from Malabar in the north to Trivandrum
The "jatha idea," as the communist leader A. K. Gopalan called
emblematic of Kerala's political modernity (Jeffrey 1993:121).12
The political public, instantiated in the jatha, was also inextricably
with spaces of education, a key component of Kerala's claim to de
modernity.13 The success of the educational system-spreading edu
levels to a wide spectrum of the population-occurs in and through
which education has historically been both a key object of politic

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and a crucial space for the development and enactment of a vigor

culture. One could not write the modern political history of Ker
history of modernity in Kerala, without writing about education
object and site of contestation or as an institution that produced key
(i.e., students and teachers). As Robin Jeffrey argues, "Most Ker
encountered government-and, indeed, public politics-through a s
that has become the heart of the new Kerala" (1993:153).
Furthermore, the very political history of Kerala has a stron
generational narrative.14 The "youthfulness" of politics was one of its
but this was a youth understood to be militant and masculine. Fo
many of his contemporaries, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, the now-de
leader of the CPI-(M) in Kerala, embarked on a life of politics str
college. Having arranged a successful boycott of his history class, h
for good. In 1932, he was arrested, and in his autobiography he w
this my life had taken a new turn. My transformation from a boy
dedicating his entire life to active politics became complete" (Jeffr
story of Kerala's modernity is written as a generational one, with
sons dragging their elders into a new Kerala. The 1938 campaign
government in Trivandrum is a case in point that, many would ar
the form that public protest would take on the Kerala landscape. W
about this protest, the largest that Kerala has ever seen, was that t
caste members of the dignified Legislative Council, who usually dre
suits and ties, had donned homespun cotton (khadi) to march in the ja
slogans at the goading of student and peasant groups (Jeffrey 19
youth as a space of masculine political agency has been key to the
public politics in Kerala.16
In 1924, the satyagraha in Vaikom focused on the rights of low
viduals to use the roads surrounding a temple. In a stark contrast w
moment, the 1990s assertion by middle-class businessmen of their r
roads was a self-conscious challenge to the prevailing conception of
The contemporary contestation over the dominant forms of poli
Kerala touches at the heart of Kerala's self-identity as modem and
and reveals the larger contours of a debate about the very meanin
politics and citizenship in these globalizing times. This struggle to
ship is also manifesting itself in spaces of education and youth as w
in the next section. The political public, a conception of the public
a tradition of public politics that emerged out of the colonial peri
fronted by a privatized citizenship linked to a conception of a proper
civic public.17
The idea of the public being contested in the jatha of middle-class
is both literal and conceptual. Literally, it is about the functioning
schools, and workplaces. These public places are linked to the con
space of the public, conceptually, through the language of rights, d

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people, property, and politics. Literal places are linked to contested

notions of the public by the ways in which they are used and occu
being contested here are two notions of the public, one civic and o
both linked to the functioning of literal spaces deemed to express the n
public that constitutes them as "public," and the use of which some
"fundamental rights." Crucial to the constitution of a civic public is
of the political through the assertion of the well-mannered and order
public space and through the respect for property by those deemed
"The people" are disarticulated from these places in the reconceptu
public space defined in terms of consumer citizenship. This new conc
public defends the rights of its citizens to consume public space an
redress in a consumer forum.18 These rights are defined in relation to
to stay indoors and not being able to "move around freely" because
violence. In this conception, the public has been forcibly privatized-
in the home-by politics. Although the privacy of the home is an i
the privacy of the market is glossed as the freedom to choose.
The privatizing logic of the market asserts its claims on the public
logic of consumption. The freedom of consumption is linked with t
move in an uninhibited way through public places. In this way, the "
articulates with the figure of the "private consumer." For the civic publ
hand, the limit of a genuinely democratic public is violence and fear
For the political public, on the other hand, violence is not a limit
when justifiable, it lies at the very heart of politics. The public is not c
lack of fear and well-mannered behavior but by the "right to protes
expression of political legitimacy.19
The Politics of Emptiness
In this genealogy of the "political public" in Kerala, education is

important space for politics, and youth is defined as a category of
political agency. Within the political culture of the state, the space
is a particularly charged and routinized one. Student politics is almo
structured by the larger political culture, and the college system, an
other kinds of schools as well, is integral to the reproduction of the of
culture.20 Very often, the student wings of the national parties we
do the hard labor of grassroots political mobilization and education
the forefront of larger political demonstrations. Student leaders an
socialized into party politics, and they moved up into the ranks of th
parties. Therefore, in very straightforward and routinized ways, col
and reproduced the official political culture of the state.
At the same time, the everyday life of politics (rashtriyam) with
must be situated within the everyday contexts that young people
tics emerges from a terrain of gender and generational practices, pa

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struggles of young men as they restlessly navigate fun, friendship, a

public. Masculine forms of sociality and mobility are central to und
ways in which public spaces of politics and citizenship, as constit
life, are lived and contested. Elsewhere, I discuss the complex of
embody an unruly, restless masculinity, including notions of fun an
in press). With respect to everyday practices of politics, I focus her
mobility through public spaces as important to understanding the
politics emerges within the college. The conditions of possibility o
space of the college lie in the restless navigation of public space by
A contrast between feminine and masculine modes of navi
space should be instructive here. The emptiness of the classrooms
that the college is not occupied. Just as with the street, the beac
stand, the classroom becomes a gendered space of sociality. Women
inside the classrooms, rarely traversing the corridors and open places
The goal-oriented, demure comportment necessary to traverse th
that if there is no class, women are expected to go home. This demu
rooted in the notion of a closed, contained body moving toward a
destination through public space, both enables and constrains a wo
in public.22 At times women students may stay and hang out with
school, then go shopping, or if really adventurous, they go to an ic
or the India Coffee House. They may also meet their "lines" (a sla
romantic interest) on the road behind the college where hopefully
In cases in which there is no official purpose to her being at the co
a woman's presence in public is precarious for she cannot be "too
movements. Being too free, of course, involves her sexualization.
This constraint for women may be contrasted to masculine forms
rooted in the notion of "wandering about" or "gallivanting" (karan
of restless, aimless movement in search of fun, romance, and frien
a particularly energetic young man, the emptiness of the college
these things. He related to me how he is everywhere in the college
the classroom. It did not matter to him whether class was conducte
all the same to him:
I have been at this college for five years and never had one year of full attendance. I
have a very strict schedule, but it is my own. I study from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. at home.
I know the syllabus, so I read on my own, take my own notes. Then there is tutorial
in Modem College to help me. But I come to college every day. I will wander about
[karangum]. I will see what is happening. I start on the top floor then I come down
to the first floor. I never stop, I just say hello to everyone, my friends. Then I'm on
my way. By that time, it's noon. Time for lunch. I eat lunch, then, I leave the college.
Sometimes I go to the public library to read. Okay, sometimes I go to the movies. Or
wherever my friends might go.
I asked Biju how he could maintain such a poor attendance record because it
was impossible to sit for end-of-the-year exams without having attended a certain

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percentage of classes. He said there were many ways of getting aro

as bribing the office clerk who took attendance every day.
The emptiness of the college is a different kind of opportunity
political workers. Sissan fits the typical profile of a supporter of th
eration of India (SFI), which is the dominant student political organ
college and affiliated to the CPI-(M). A first-generation college st
poor peasant background, Sissan was a hard worker and unusually
passionate in his dedication to the ideals of the party. Once I saw
toward the college and I told him he could stop, he was not late, a s
called and there were no classes. The strike was part of a mobiliza
the privatization of higher education and the liberalization of the In
undertaken by left parties. He had come an hour and half by bus to
He laughingly said, "It's only when there is a strike that it's worth
college. That's when you must come to college." If there was noth
the party at the college, he would often go to the district office of
whatever was required of him there or attend a few sessions at w
"parallel colleges" nearby to keep up with his class work. In the p
parallel colleges such as the Modern College, a private tutorial cen
also attended, have sprung up all over Kerala as a set of institution
registering to take exams, and so forth. For many politically orie
recourse to a parallel institution for cramming two months before
them to turn the college into an empty place where no formal lear
From the perspective of a civic conception of citizenship, colleges
civic virtue and public consumption of services are held hostage, in
politics: the endless strikes that last a day, a week, or sometimes a
as fasts and demonstrations.
Although Biju's narrative emphasizes his freedom to wander about, which he

associates with fun and friendship, Sissan's narrative is one of dedicated and disci-
plined political work. However, these forms of mobility are not easily disentangled.
The masculinity of wandering about freely in an undisciplined way is the condition
of possibility for producing a masculinity in which movement is disciplined (as
in the jatha). They are intertwined in the everyday life of the college. Incidents of
politics are rarely separable from a problem of unruly "(in)discipline."23
One form of indiscipline involves damage to college property. A good exam-
ple of such an incident involves Prabhu, who was brought before a disciplinary
committee. He was charged with running through the corridors with a bunch of his
friends, shouting and slamming windows, doors, and shutters against the college
walls. He was also accused of breaking the blackboard in the botany department
classroom. When a teacher ran into the classroom, Prabhu took off on his motorbike
but the teacher was able to identify him. He was immediately suspended but peti-
tioned to have his suspension lifted. Prabhu stood in front of the seated disciplinary
committee composed of three teachers and two students; his head was bowed
with eyes to the ground and hands clasped behind his back. Under questioning,

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it became clear that he came to college about once every three da

about instead of attending classes, and he had previously let the
scooter tires of two teachers. However, he argued that he was wr
because teachers had a grudge against him for being involved in th
and being an active member of the SFI. He respected teachers and
would have never done such things. He argued that he was a simpl
(pawam).24
The problem of discipline is wrapped around the problem of po
both are grounded in a form of masculine sociality that is reckle
Although Prabhu might assert that his demeanor is pawam, it w
is not understood that way. A troublemaker, he is one who reckl
about, destroying property, talking back to teachers, and letting the
tires. However, because he was a prominent member of the SFI u
once his suspension was lifted, many believed that he had gotten o
administration did not want any more trouble with the party.
More quotidian forms of fighting take on another character. A
pointed out to me, the problem is often not political trouble but
Narratives of these incidents proceed in a fairly structured way: a
a girl in an inappropriate way, another boy gets upset about this (p
is his "line," a cousin, or someone from his village) and fights with
boy. One of them just happens to be associated with a particular
the other with a rival party. This will then escalate as members of
will be drawn into further clashes. What is at stake in these narratives is a male
struggle over the honor and virtue of women that also manages women's sexuality
by reinforcing the importance for women of maintaining a demure presence in
public.
Politics confronts the public space of the college in the form of everyday
problems of (in)discipline that are then understood to be the machinations of
"outside forces" (i.e., political parties). An angle of vision on the meaning of this
politics, and the anti-politics that confronts it, can be ascertained by examining
the attempts to produce a civic public within the space of the college. Both the
college administration and civic-minded students attempt to do this in several
ways, most notably through student associations that are explicitly understood to
be antipolitical. Here, the student-citizen who figures as an agent of development is
key. Within the discourse of development, this student-citizen moves from being
simply the object of the educational process (and, therefore, in some senses an
object of development) to being an agent of development.
This notion of the student-citizen is institutionalized on a national level in
the National Service Scheme (NSS). The NSS is a nationwide organization of

college students that has a unit in almost every state-affiliated college. The NSS
builds gardens, digs tube wells, runs blood drives, and conducts rural surveys.
Sometimes they participate as census enumerators as well. Here, the student-
citizen does not destroy but builds. The organization encourages participation by

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giving extra points on year-end examination marks, making this a

Students also like to join because it is relatively easy to excuse abse
class by producing certificates saying that one was involved in some
A major project of the NSS unit in the college was the building o
the space between the college building and the campus wall. Full of
had been noted as a place of congregation for the "bad elements" in t
one teacher put it. Students would stay after class and come on Satu
this space. Plants were obtained from the homes of teachers and p
limited budget did not permit buying them. The highlight of the gard
of well-tended green grass in the shape of territorial India that the stu
in the project were sure was going to win them a university-wide com
had entered. The teacher who was in charge of the college's NSS un
the intention of the garden:
Every year the NSS has a theme. For this year, the new theme is "youth
development." Last year it was "youth for national integration." Given
we made a garden, that garden that you see over there. Yes, according to
in every college there should be a garden, for the youth [yuvakal]. A pl
An assembly place of youth, for their studies, for their day-to-day activ
discussions. That is the kind of garden that we are growing, that we m
main scheme of NSS silver jubilee. Nowadays, the preservation of trees,
a concern of youth. Also, in the ancient system, for students to sit und
the shade and study, there was that idea as well. In the Vedic period, th
students used to sit under trees and study. Then for their congregation, to
to sit, for all that a special place. Then you grow trees, plants, for the be
the environment, the surroundings.
This "place of youth" became a space for the congregation of stud

a space of associational civil society, freely congregating in a devel
enacts the Nehruvian model of development on the part of student-
are patriotic and productive (Deshpande 1993), but it was also unde
resistance to the "empty place" of youth that the college had becom
outlined why he thought the NSS could subsume the politics that inc
college: "The college is in the grip of this rashtriyam. But in the N
[members from] all [student] groups, KSU, ABVP, SFI. In the NSS
problem of politics. On Sundays when they work together, they work
by side, hand in hand." He went on to discuss the ways in which th
in a kind of anti-politics: "When they come to the NSS, they must
politics. They have to forget all kinds of political beliefs, while rema
NSS is over politics. We have a seminar and raise awareness. So we
main point, 'don't get violent.' They then spread the message to oth
This struggle between his notion of a "place of youth" and the n
"empty place" of the college is a palpable one. Every year that the
to build a garden, it has been destroyed:
This year we must maintain this project. We have to deal with viole
students. Several times, our garden has been destroyed, vandalized. T

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case to the police. Even though the case did not go anywhere, the kids
okay, worked and made it right again.... We will make it all neat, neat
to that end. It is a tiresome job.
Some students, highly critical of all the rashtriyam in the college

about the garden because they thought it would create the kind of
wanted to be a part of, a civic public full of opportunity and growt
NSS member states: "Look at this college. It is like a desert. It shou
and beautiful, full with plants. The garden will make it look differen
to say that the college had few activities, nothing to "direct the yo
that in the activities he engaged in, there was "direction" and "e
women participated in the National Cadet Corp, studying first aid
while male students studied shipbuilding and sailing. Within the Ne
of student citizenship, the student is not a roaming, wayward you
"direction." His activities are spatially arranged in an orderly ma
toward his own future and that of his nation. Although this Neh
presents itself as gender neutral, it links a middle-class masculinit
of a demure femininity that will perform its assigned nurturing role
The empty college is a product of the contestation between a
political conception of the space of the college and the practices
citizenship that define it. As with roads, shops, schools, and transpor
the college is an embattled terrain, a technology of citizenship in w
over its proper functioning constitute a struggle over the meanin
citizenship. It is underwritten by gender and generational practices
mobility that constitute the everyday modes of this struggle.
Politics, Privatization, and Education
The contestation between the civic and the political, so far lo

a Nehruvian conception of service to the nation, takes on a renew
formed set of meanings under conditions of neoliberalism and the
privatization it has generated. The "civic" is increasingly tied to dis
sumption and a free market. Nowhere is this more apparent than
itself becomes an object of politics.
Since the initiation of economic reforms in the early 1990s, t
higher education has centered on its privatization. To understand
I focus on the deployments of a distinction between private and
relationship to the politics at stake in these debates. Despite the rh
opposed to privatization, who often argue that privatization is a ne
public and private historically have been entangled. Only by paying at
prior history will it be possible to delineate the specificity of priv
neoliberal regimes. Although questions of supply and demand and
and quality dominate privatization efforts in education, it is equa
to pay attention to the status of the political within these debates

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aspect of the debate centers on how much blame for the crisis in edu
be placed on the pervasive presence of student (and teacher) politic
usually tied in varying degrees to the politics of major political part
the arguments against the "politicization of higher education" are
explanations that link it to the disruption of a proper academic life a
to the lowering of academic standards.25 At both levels, the distinc
private and public has been central. In an era of neoliberalization,
over whether education is a public good or a private commodity are t
conceptions of the public, citizenship, and democracy.
The large number in Kerala of higher educational institutions w
private sector is somewhat unique within India.26 The attempt to brin
sector of education within full public view through state regulatio
heart of the student politics of the 1990s, in which education as a
developing a productive citizenry in service to the nation became en
the idea of education as a commodity. One important sector of priva
the very powerful and widespread system of educational institutions
Christian churches. Along with several schools and a college set up by
of Travancore, Western missionaries and Christian churches were am
to establish schools and colleges in the 19th century, to serve the
Christian community as well as lower-caste Hindu converts. The dem
to education also became a central feature of popular struggles by an
reform movements, in particular the Izhava-based Sree Narayana m
The struggle for an egalitarian public (i.e., for the rights of lower-ca
walk on public roads, enter temples, go to school, and get governmen
major object of political mobilization. Within the volatile coalition-
of the last several decades, granting approval for new schools and
various constituencies has been a major way to attract votes.28
The struggle to control these private institutions has been a majo
Kerala's politics for most of its history since the founding of the state
contestations over the education bill, which was intended to regulat
admissions processes under the sponsorship of the first communist
of 1957-59, starkly reveal the dynamics of this persistent feature w
politics. The opposition to this bill came primarily from the Christian o
that opposed government interference and saw it as a threat to th
religious minorities. Schools were closed and students mobilized. In
after many deaths and arrests, rule by the central government was
the communist ministry was dismissed. Many of the provisions of t
not fully implemented until the early 1970s, when private colleges, t
affiliations to public universities, were brought under more state contr
was largely because of the efforts of teachers' unions. From this b
it becomes clear that the private sector that dominates higher edu
private and public. The private here is understood to be primarily t
religious minorities and specific upper- and lower-caste communitie

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some discretion over a portion of admissions and hiring. However, the

which they are strictly private is undermined by the structure and ext
funding and the requirement that they affiliate with the university syst
which the government controls appointments, admissions, curricula, a
This allows the state to set quotas for hiring and admission and to im
reservation system, used to redress discrimination against lower-caste
However, the market is another realm of the private that colludes a
with both the private of communities described above and the public o
The private market exists in the educational field in two senses. First,
control that the state exerts over private educational institutions, private
for job appointments and capitation fees for student admissions are r
common. Another kind of private market for education is the widespre
of parallel colleges. Completely outside the private sector of educatio
described above are the private tutorial centers that Biju and Sissan
on to get them through exams while not attending class. Housed in a f
of a building or hut and often surrounding the regular colleges to whi
quite literally "parallel," these colleges emerged and expanded during
as a result of policies intended to address a growing demand for highe
that the existing system could not meet.29
Therefore, the 1990s debates about the privatization of higher edu
Kerala must be placed within a prior context of a state-saturated pri
of education and an expanding parallel system of private education. T
testations escalated in 1994-95 when the ruling pro-Congress UDF go
attempted to allow the establishment of new colleges that would be en
financing and unsubsidized but under some measure of government
The emergence of these new institutions would mark another developm
entangled public-private sector relations in the education field. Mr. E.
who was at that time the education minister, argued that although nearly
of the state budget was being spent on education, it was still insufficient
some had argued that self-financing colleges were elitist and would e
poor, he disagreed and stated that those who could afford to pay shou
opportunity to do so and this would lead to healthy competition and high
The pro-LDF student and teacher organizations led by the SFI launch
and vigorous set of agitations to oppose what they called the "commerc
higher education," including an "education bandh" that kept many col
for months.
This process of privatization was both similar to and different from

occurred earlier. If we look back to the agitations surrounding the 1
Education Bill, the private sphere that opposed the government was pr
Christian churches. However, a new actor has now appeared on the scen
Resident Indian (NRI). Technically, NRI is a banking category of the In
intent on attracting the capital flows of the Indian diasporic commun
the cultural politics of consumption in contemporary India, the mark

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NRI lifestyle has become associated with the effects of market libe
the aspirations of a globalizing middle class (Deshpande 1993). W
international migration has been extensive especially to the Persian
1970s.30 Remittances now make up about 30 percent of Kerala's dom
(Zachariah et al. 1999). The children of Gulf migrants are unable to
because family visas are rarely given, and, furthermore, the citize
ments within Gulf countries often restrict access to higher educat
demand to open new colleges for the dependents of NRIs, in which
could simply pay to have their children admitted and circumvent re
tas and other admissions requirements. Additionally, given their se
status, these colleges were perceived to serve better the global tr
aspirations of NRI families through curriculum reform and superio
being free of the "politicization of education."
Examining a court case brought against the government by the
secretary of the SFI reveals the struggle over NRI funding of educat
the state had decided to allow the establishment of several privat
colleges that would have a quota system for admissions, similar to
caste groups. However, in addition to setting up quotas for group
Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), 40 percent of
were to be reserved for NRIs. As a result of much agitation and pr
reduced to five percent. The stark contrast between a caste reservation
SC-ST and that of the more affluent NRI points to the increasing d
the state by social groups defined by their ability to consume. In a
way, the private consumer was making a claim on the public. An an
is redefining educational institutions as spaces of civic virtue in p
politics is increasingly asserted through a language of freedom tied
As with the attempt to ban bandhs on the basis of right to "consum
such as roads, the college becomes a space for a contestation betw
political conceptions of citizenship that are being transformed thro
of consumption.
How the politics of anti-politics emerges in the college can be
attempt by some students to create a debating society, something
never had before. On one of those days when a strike had been ca
of the students who had shown up for the day had left, I met Su
compound wall where he told me with excitement to come to a mee
day. It was to be held at a parallel college located in a one-room shac
at the next junction. When I asked him what the meeting was abou
were going to try and start a new student organization, the Associ
Discussion, to debate the issues of the day. The meeting was attend
students, five of whom were women. Sujit spoke first. His talk rehe
litanies about student politics and how it had corrupted education
prevented students from learning, from getting jobs, and from
to the country. Echoing the anti-bandh politics, he argued that r

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not about serving the people, it was about personal gain and privat
purpose of the debating society was to talk about society but to do
was "not rashtriyam." He went on to say that the act of debatin
not politics because in a debating society two opponents argue abou
one may win or lose a debate but the issue is never decided. Wha
the language. In a debating society, one did not have politicians (
but orators (wagamar), men of flowing words; one would just ha
stream of language. He went on to say that rashtriyam began whe
wrong had been established. In a debate, there was no right and w
no conclusion, and therefore it would not be explicitly political.
Here, politics is closure, the end of talk, the stating of conclus
politics discourse deploys words and their never-ending flow again
This kind of "free talk" did not happen within the space of the c
Sujit stated that they must not hold the meeting in one of the emp
rooms. This must be something outside-in that "parallel" space, t
consumption, outside the political public. Sujit's notion of "free t
within a notion of a civic public forged by middle-class norms o
in a bourgeois form of masculinity struggling to articulate itself a
rooted in a more unruly form. It relies on a kind of proceduralism, f
valorizing the process of the production of talk itself, rather than
might derive from a process of talk. The latter is understood to b
logic of means and ends based on firm convictions and conclusions
The discourse of anti-politics that underlies this student's attem
debating society in the college echoes the discourse of anti-politics
garden in the college. The latter, I argued, was an attempt to instanti
conception of a productive citizen in the face of what is seen to
politicization" of the college. However, this Nehruvian conception
is now linked with discourses of consumption, in which free talk
the freedom to consume. This is a shift from an understanding of
building the nation to one in which one ought to be free to consum
Conclusion
The legitimacy of power is based on the people, but the image of pop-
ular sovereignty is linked to the image of an empty place, impossible
to occupy, such that those who exercise public authority can never
claim to appropriate it.
-Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory

Claude Lefort's (1988) "image of an empty place" is his attempt to capture
an indeterminacy at the heart of the social logic of democracy. His formulati
is an attempt to link "the people" as a politically constituted community to th
image of a place. However, just as "the people" can never be understood outsid
its political constitution, neither can "place." Central to the political constitutio

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of the "empty place" of democracy is a spatial distinction betwee

public. The struggle about what constitutes politics happens thro
over literal places and their conceptual understandings. As such, I h
ways in which understandings of places as public or private, for exam
the gardens of a college, become the grounds on which official polit
Mapped on to the spatial distinctions between public and priv
courses that pit the realm of the private as the market-specifical
of exchange and consumption-against public politics (rashtriya
plored the ways in which consumption straddles this opposition b
and private and how the realm of the political becomes reconfigured
Needless to say, the realm of politics is articulated in and through
understanding of public and private that renders not only the m
women as private. The reconfiguration of politics depends on an al
understanding of the public as an ambivalently gendered space in
class, and gendered notions of a "demure" femininity have includ
public spaces of work and education, what one might call the "civic
excluding them from full participation in an expressly "political p
In discussing the trajectory of civil and political society, Chatt
that, in this latest phase of globalization, an opposition between t
be emerging (2000:47). I have explored an instance of such an opp
an already constituted notion of a modem public, lived through v
of masculine sociality and mobility. This has entailed examining d
politics and the anti-politics that confront it within debates about
In this latest phase of globalization, the opposition between a civi
political public is being reconstituted in and through the deploymen
of consumption.
The freedom to move through public spaces, as in the anti-ba
strations, and the freedom to consume public goods, such as educ
of freedom that I have linked to the freedom of choice in consum
the official political domain at its limits within this discourse of an
underlies privatization efforts. This freedom to consume public spa
a middle-class masculinity that is respectable, orderly, and discipli
another masculinity that is equally orderly and disciplined if not qu
The empty college emerges out of struggles over the meanings and fu
public in and through practices of democratic citizenship in educat
In this way, I have sought to explore how the consumption tha
"everyday life" is saturated by discourses of consumption as an ind
global order and, therefore, must be situated within the distinct cu
ological fields through which they navigate. Within postcolonial
consumption discourses intersect with narratives and practices of
that emerged out of the colonial period and were consolidated in th
era. This analysis pays as much attention to the production of dis
consumption and politics as it has to the fact of their everyday re

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the two in ways that track how globalizing discourses of consumptio

intersect in particular cultural and ideological fields.
Notes
Acknowledgments. This article was presented in various versions as papers at the

South Asia Seminar, University of Chicago; Asian Studies Association Meetings, the 91st
Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 2-6, 1998; the
Spencer Foundation Advanced Seminar on Anthropology and Education; the Department of
Anthropology, University of Minnesota; the South Asia Colloquium, Yale University: and
the Center for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore, India. I thank the participants of
these forums for their engagement. In particular, I thank Carol Greenhouse and G. Arunima
for their insightful and helpful comments and David Scott for his extensive reading and
suggestions. I gratefully acknowledge the Fulbright Program, the American Institute of
Indian Studies, and the Spencer Foundation for supporting the research and writing that
contributed to this article.
1. The literature on development in Kerala and its status as a "model" is vast and varied.
For discussions of the specificity of Kerala's development experience see Chasin and Franke
1992, George 1993, Jeffrey 1993, and Oommen 1993. Parayil (2000) provides a more recent
overview, while Isaac and Franke (2002) discuss recent efforts in Kerala to decentralize the
development experience. For a critical assessment of the scholarly literature on Kerala's
development experience, see Tharamangalam 1998 and ensuing responses by Franke and
Chasin (1998), among others. For an assessment of Kerala's development experience within
a wider discussion of development, see Sen 1999.
2. The literature on the "public sphere" has received renewed attention through critical
engagements with Habermas (1989), in which he lays out the conditions for the constitu-
tion of a liberal bourgeois public sphere, a normative ideal that he argues was historically
constituted in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. Historians have challenged his em-
phasis on rational critical debate as the defining quality of discourse in democratic public
spheres, suggesting it more as an ideal than a reality (Calhoun 1992; Eley 1992; Ryan
1992). Feminists have explored the issue of participation, examining the conditions of ex-
clusion within liberal public spheres and the politics this has generated (Benhabib 1992;
Fraser 1992). Scholars have also examined the nature of the public and public space in
non-Western contexts (Appadurai 1996; Breckenridge 1995; Chakrabarty 2000; Chatterjee
2000; Kaviraj 1997). Drawing on this work, this article examines the explicit discourses
and practices of publicness to understand the reconfiguration of politics in the era of glob-
alization, arguing that issues of the nature and quality of public life are linked to questions
of inclusion and exclusion. Emergent literature on modem education and schooling has
highlighted the importance of such sites for the constitution of citizens in the public spheres
of modem nation-states (Foucault 1977; Hall 2002; Levinson 2001; Levinson et al. 1996;
Luykx 1999; Mitchell 1991; Stambach 2000). In particular, Mitchell (1991) and Foucault
(1977) focus on the school as a technology of modem governance that sought to create
autonomous, responsible, citizen-subjects. This article is interested in the contradictions
and tensions within such a normative project, as it intersects with postcolonial histories and
practices of citizenship. Ethnographies of education have pointed to the everyday contexts
of educational spaces, their determination by larger-level discursive practices of citizenship,
and the contradictions they engender (Hall 2002; Levinson 2001; Luykx, 1999; Stambach
2000). Drawing on this literature, I focus on the everyday practices of publicness and their
circulating discourses as they weave in and out of the site of a Keralan college, focusing on
the tensions between a civic and political conception of citizenship in the college.

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3. By denoting the market as private, I do not mean to suggest that th

not function within the public realm or that the state does not function with
realm. My intent is to track the discursive construction of the market
confronts the "public" of the state within privatization discourses.
4. The public-private binary has received sustained attention and scruti
inist scholarship. Although early work saw the binary as the foundatio
gendered social organization, for example in the work of Michelle Rosa
contemporary understandings seek to understand its historical and cult
in relationship to capitalism, colonialism, and nationalism (e.g., Sangar
For an overview of recent feminist work on the public-private binary
Landes 1998. Drawing on this scholarship, I am less interested in substan
of what constitutes public and private and more interested in tracking thei
deployments within contemporary discourses of politics and citizenship in
neoliberal reforms.
5. For Chatterjee (2004), the distinction between "civil society" and "political society"
is a way of apprehending forms of contemporary politics on the part of subaltern populations
who are enmeshed in the workings of the postcolonial state, understood in Foucauldian
terms, as a process of the governmentalization of populations. This distinction displaces
that of the dualism between "tradition" and "modernity" in that, rather than seeing the
politics of subaltern groups as inadequately modern or traditional, he argues that we begin to
understand subaltern politics in contemporary postcolonial societies as thoroughly modern
while not conforming to the notions of modernity encompassed by Western bourgeois
forms of civic associational behavior. Although Chatterjee emphasizes political society
as something outside that of civil society, I am interested in the mutual entanglements and
confrontations between elite and nonelite conceptions of democracy within a self-conscious
public political field defined by parliamentary democracy within Kerala. Further, given my
emphasis on the constitution of public politics in Kerala, I see the gendered nature of this
public as underwriting the confrontation between the civic and the political. Chatterjee
mentions gender as "the darker side of political society," and on matters related to gender,
he states, "one can discern the inescapable conflict between the enlightened desires of civil
society and the messy, contentious, and often unpalatable concerns of political society"
(2004:77). This seems to conflate mobilizations based on gender with that of civil society
rather than political society in ways that are left unexamined. I see the gendering of the
civic and the political to be differential yet nonetheless related.
6. This has led to significant overlap-if not identity-between what one might call
the anthropology of globalization and the anthropology of consumption, although clearly,
they are not reducible to each other (Appadurai 1988, 1996; Liechty 2003). In this sense, it
is argued that consumption is a privileged site for the study of globalization.
7. As Judith Butler states, the very act of delimiting the boundaries of a political
field is a political act, and tracking contestations over what is political and what is not is
a revealing moment for examining questions of citizenship and belonging (1992). More
recently, Appadurai (2002) and Comaroff and Comaroff (2000) focus attention on the ways
in which explicit political discourses of democracy and civil society operate within everyday
contexts and in popular discourses.
8. I borrow anti-politics from Ferguson (1994). However, the sense in which I use
it here is somewhat different. Ferguson argues that development produces anti-politics, a
depoliticization that masks its own very instrumental operations-namely the bureaucratiza-
tion and expansion of state power-by turning poverty into a technical problem in Lesotho.
The "politics" that Ferguson marks as being "depoliticized" is rendered self-evidently as
the workings of political parties. In this way, what constitutes "politics" is naturalized. My

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analysis uses the language of "politics" and "anti-politics" to examine a

produced political field within Kerala so as to understand its limits and p
9. Kaviraj (1997) discusses what he calls the "plebianization of the publ
He tracks the changing valences of public space in the city, marking the way
for example, shift from being understood as middle-class spaces to plebia
10. Satyagraha, meaning nonviolent struggle, was a key weapon in the
guage and practice of Gandhian forms of protest. Jathas, bandhs, hartals
became the language of nationalist politics, with the Vaikom Satyagraha be
early example.
11. The uniqueness of unapproachability within the caste structure of the region has
often been noted. See Dumont 1970.
12. This form of protest, with its regimented marching, slogans (usually, "Inquilab
Zindabad") and the raised, clenched fist, entered the representational repertoire in the nar-
rative of Kerala's modernity and in cultural productions such as plays, songs, and posters, all
of which were crucial to the history of politics and social transformation. Especially in plays,
the break with the feudal, caste-ridden past and the entry into revolutionary consciousness
was usually represented by a lower-caste Pulayan or Peruma caste member standing before
an upper-caste Nayar or Nambudiri brahmin landlord, 10, 20, or 30 paces away, one hand
over his mouth, the other across his chest, in a pose of servility and supplication. That same
man then proceeds to march right up to a landlord's house, shouting slogans, fist clenched
in the air (Zarrilli 1996:xii).
13. High rates of male and female literacy, a widespread system of school education,
high rates of female participation at every level of education, and one of the least expensive
systems of higher education in India are key to the "Kerala Model of Development." The
model, however, is contradictory. The success of primary and secondary education has
greatly increased a demand for higher education during the last 25 years that the state has
not been successful in meeting. Further, and this is a contradiction within the more general
"Kerala Model," the labor market of the state has not been able to absorb the vast numbers
of graduates of this system. Chronic and high unemployment of the educated is a persistent
and central feature of the Kerala economy (Mathew 1997).
14. In this article, I move easily between youth and student, although, of course, there is
no necessary link between the two. Within Kerala, there are also political organizations such
as the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) that primarily caters to young men in
their twenties and early thirties outside the educational system. However, given the educa-
tional history of Kerala, the relationship between "youth" and "student" is clear and strong.
15. For a discussion of the semiotics of khadi, see Cohn (1996) and Tarlo (1996).
16. "Youth" as a category of political and social agency is very much underwritten
by a family romance, crucially tied to the idea of a revolutionary or revolutionizing young
man. As Zarrilli (1995) and others have argued, plays were central to the spread of the left
movement in Kerala, perhaps the most important one being You Made Me a Communist by
Tooppil Bhaasi. First staged in 1952 by the Kerala People's Arts Club, which was founded by
a group of student activists intent on raising popular awareness of sociopolitical issues such
as land reform and caste inequality, the play has been staged more than 2,000 times since and
continues to be staged today. During the 1950s, it is estimated that it was regularly staged
four times a day. Although actors play the characters today, in the 1950s it was activists,
many of them students, who played the various roles. In 1957, when the first freely elected
communist government came to power in Kerala, many attributed the victory of that election
to this play. Like many plays of its kind, this one involved a transformation of consciousness
on the part of a character. The central character in this play is Paramu Pillai who is "made a
Communist." He is an older man of a declining dominant Nayar family whose son Gopalan

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is already a communist. Various struggles over land and the dishonoring o

girl form the plot of the long play. Another aspect of the play is the r
Gopalan, the dedicated communist, and Sumam, the daughter of the capital
comes to see the evils of capitalism while falling in love. By the end, P
to join the party. The play ends with him raising the red flag as the slogan
march against another injustice. The lower-caste female character is und
her sexuality, which the communist youths protect from dishonor by a ca
The upper-caste daughter of the capitalist landlord escapes her oppression
to marry her off) through romance with the young communist. And the el
man is made to see the error of his ways by the dedicated work of the co
In all cases, the youthful agency at work here is a revolutionary or revolu
man. Often, this young man is an upper-caste male---either a decadent you
politicized, as in another of Bhaasi's plays entitled Prodigal Son, or an al
upper-caste youth showing his elders the error of their feudal ways. If th
not upper caste, the narrative presents a lower-caste young man who m
servile and humble to being aggressive, disciplined, and militant. The fam
structures this narration of the emergence of a political public demonstrat
of youth and the youthfulness of politics.
17. This is not to say that civic conceptions of the public did not ex
colonial period and during and within the nationalist movement. Quite to t
origins of these conceptions are to be found in colonial and nationalist con
society. I am looking at the articulation of this historically constituted
newer, circulating discourses of consumption within neoliberal regimes.
18. I do not want to imply here that all mobilizations of consumer d
"politics." Consumer identities have been mobilized to insert a language
conceptions of citizenship. In the United States, the antisweatshop mov
consumer identities in antiglobalization politics. In India, movements ag
of prices of essential goods have also mobilized consumer identities. Mo
the Swadeshi Movement-the economic boycott of foreign goods in favor
produced goods-politicized the consumption of commodities in the nam
nationalist politics in India. For a discussion of the changed ideological me
consumption in the Swadeshi and contemporary period, see Deshpande (1
1990s in Kerala, consumer forums and magazines emerged to help consum
increasing influx of goods in the marketplace. Interestingly, they quickly
seek solutions to the difficulties of dealing with state services, such as ge
service and paying an electricity bill. Increasingly, these organizations bega
state, for example in the anti-bandh movement described above, through jo
organizations.
19. The gender-neutral, universalist language of citizenship, politics, democracy, and
rights belies its masculinist character whenever the universal is equated with the masculine.
For a discussion of the ambiguous deployment of rights discourse within the Kerala context,
see Arunima 1995, 2003.
20. As I have indicated, the political culture of the state is dominated by the opposition
between the center-right Congress party and left parties, the most dominant one being the
CPI-(M). The most important student parties are the SFI, the student wing of the CPI-
(M); KSU, the student wing of the Congress Party; and the increasingly prominent Akhil
Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a separate student party with strong ties to the Hindu
fundamentalist and nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
21. The literature on masculinity has been helpful in shifting the study of gender
beyond that of women and femininity to processes of gender that structure gender relations.

141.211.4.224 on Sun, 08 Oct 2023 15:27:06 +00:00
Within the South Asian context, the work of Jeganathan (1997, 2000) and
Niranjana (1996) focus on nonelite forms and practices of masculinity that
political. For a discussion of different styles of masculinity in the context o
the cash economy in Kerala, see Osella and Osella 2000a.
22. Oudhukam is the term I gloss as demure, literally meaning "closed" o
Elsewhere, I situate a discussion of this type of embodied femininity with
history of the emergence of the "New Indian Woman," an embodiment o
Indian femininity: virtuous, chaste, and of upper caste and class. (Alwis
1990; Lukose n.d.; Sangari and Vaid 1989).
23. In 2003, the Kerala High Court, in the case of Sojan Francis vs. M. G
ruled against a 19-year-old college student who was barred by his principal
college exam because he did not have the requisite attendance record. The co
Kerala, was unusual because the principal had banned strikes, meetings, and
within campus walls unless those meetings were recognized by the college
as "official." The student had argued that this ban violated his constitutional
he was targeted by the principal because of his participation in the SFI. More
the decision of the principal, the ruling was widely discussed for its lengt
of the constitutionality of barring politics from college campuses. In ad
other court judgments that discussed the obstruction to learning and prope
institutions by the presence of politics, the court likened students to govern
who are banned from political activism in their places of work (Hindu 2003
24. Osella and Osella (2000a) discuss this style of masculinity, among o
25. For an assessment of the "crisis in higher education" and the role
institutions of higher education in India, see Beteille 1995.
26. Private colleges have grown to include those of the Nayar Service
The Sree Narayana Trust (of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana [SND
the Muslim Educational Society, among others. Along with this private s
educational institutions, there are four public universities to which most p
are affiliated.
27. This is the largest caste in Kerala. For a recent discussion of the expe
mobility of this formerly untouchable caste, see Osella and Osella 2000b. Fo
of the politics of the anticaste movement, see Isaac and Tharakan 1985.
28. These constituencies include caste organizations, the most impor
ing the Nayar Service Society (NSS), representing the dominant Nayar
Sree Narayana Trust (of the SNDP Yogam), representing the formerly unto
caste. Other important constituencies include religious organizations repres
Christian denominations and the Muslim Educational Society, among others
29. Although the state has allowed the number of formal educational inst
pand dramatically in the last 40 years, it has clearly not been enough. Private r
up as much as 40 percent of the total student enrollment in regular colleges
30. The lack of economic development within Kerala coupled with high
igration, escalating in the 1970s to the Persian Gulf, has turned Kerala into
economy in important respects. This traffic of people and money, in addition
global flows of goods and images, has produced a situation in which the
dependent on the global economy.
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ABSTRACT Globalization is often indexed by the rise of a co

ethos and the expansion of the market economy at the expense ofst
formulations of politics and citizenship. This article explores th
and practices of gendered democratic citizenship in an educatio
when that setting is newly reconfigured as a commodity under
privatization efforts. This entails an attention to discourses of co
as they intersect postcolonial cultural-ideological politicalfields.
on the contemporary trajectory among politicized male college
a historically important masculinist "political public" in Kerala,
article tracks an explicit discourse of "politics" (rashtriyam). Th
an exploration of a struggle over the meaning of democratic citiz
opposes a political public rooted in a tradition of anticolonial st
postcolonial nationalist politics to that of a "civic public," roote
about the freedom to consume through the logic of privatization
consumption, education, neoliberalism, India]

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Lukose EmptyCitizenshipProtesting 2005

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Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization

Author(s): Ritty Lukose

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3651541

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My aim is to examine what happens to the politics and practices

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associational life, while pointing to another domain, "political socie

Further, I mark this contemporary moment of neoliberalism by demonstrating

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Rather than viewing consumption as a naturalized set of soc

The Public in Kerala

Tracing a genealogy of the public in Kerala helps to illuminate how

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Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city. Unlike most political proces

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Party of India-Marxist (CPI-[M]) that was the opposition party at t

One way of gesturing toward the history of what one might ca

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and a crucial space for the development and enactment of a vigor

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people, property, and politics. Literal places are linked to contested

The Politics of Emptiness

In this genealogy of the "political public" in Kerala, education is

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struggles of young men as they restlessly navigate fun, friendship, a

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percentage of classes. He said there were many ways of getting aro

Although Biju's narrative emphasizes his freedom to wander about, which he

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it became clear that he came to college about once every three da

the National Service Scheme (NSS). The NSS is a nationwide organization of

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giving extra points on year-end examination marks, making this a

This "place of youth" became a space for the congregation of stud

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Some students, highly critical of all the rashtriyam in the college

Politics, Privatization, and Education

The contestation between the civic and the political, so far lo

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some discretion over a portion of admissions and hiring. However, the

This process of privatization was both similar to and different from

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-Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory

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of the "empty place" of democracy is a spatial distinction betwee

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the two in ways that track how globalizing discourses of consumptio

Acknowledgments. This article was presented in various versions as papers at the

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3. By denoting the market as private, I do not mean to suggest that th

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analysis uses the language of "politics" and "anti-politics" to examine a

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is already a communist. Various struggles over land and the dishonoring o

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