Genesis of the Land Broker State

This chapter explains why the shift from state developmentalism to neoliberalism in India transformed the Rajasthan state government into a land broker state. During the developmentalist period, the state had largely dispossessed land for public-sector industrial and infrastructural projects that reflected the social commitments of Nehruvian planning. But as economic liberalization created new private demand for rural land from the 1990s onward, the pressure of inter-state competition and the lure of licit and illicit rents incentivized the government to begin dispossessing land for any private purpose representing “growth,” including real estate development, regardless of its broader developmental consequences. This neoliberal regime of dispossession culminated in the mid-2000s with Special Economic Zones (SEZs). While SEZs were facing “land wars” across India, the Rajasthan government sought to avoid opposition by giving farmers a stake in the resulting real estate speculation: a shift in mechanisms of compliance that would be highly consequential.