Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

The city of Bangalore is an excellent example of the point I noted in my earlier blog. The report shared on my blog points toward the political nexus behind the land grab operation. What the report does not bring into question though is the growing development of Bangalore as the IT hub of India, the burgeoning middle class in the city, and the epitomization of this middle class desire in the new complexes, housing development projects, and flats that have come up in the city. The myopia of media coverage and public discourse on corruption in India (and this includes the short-sightedness of the Lokpal discourse) is its inability to fundamentally interrogate the desires and dreams of middle class Indians that underlie the nexus between corporations, criminals, and politicians. Although the politicians depicted here indeed need to be interrogated, we also however need to examine our own aspirations that fuel large scale landgrab all across the country. For instance, after watchi...

When I hear the stories about their aspirations among friends and family, I am often struck by the narratives of making money by buying and selling property. The desire to make a quick buck by buying and selling property has become all too common of a story in neoliberal India, so common that it almost seems commonsensical to be a middle class Indian and to own multiple flats, each of which is seen as an investment opportunity that gives higher and higher return on investments (ROI). The neoliberal dream is embodied in the desire to own a flat, in Rajarhat, or Naui Mumbai, or Noida. Parents dream of their child's success in terms of the number of flats owned by the child. Fathers want their daughters married off to middle class boys with pockets that can afford them multiple flats in the Lakhs and Crores. The promise of the neoliberal dream for the middle class Indian is in the ownership of this piece of security and economic growth. The promise of neoliberalism in India is deepl...