Edited with an Introduction By Ronald J. Herring and Rina Agarwala

Is class analysis dead? Ownership of the means of production is a fundamental division in society. Yet class defined only on this traditional basis doesn’t fully help one understand class systems now, especially in semi-agrarian countries like India. Then in understanding South Asian countries, how much can class analysis contribute, or how much does it need to be adapted to be of use?

This book of reflections from South Asia reminds readers of the continuing relevance of class as an analytical tool, while also attempting to update and adapt it to particular current situations, such as organization of workers without a defined employer and workplace, ‘civil society’ organizations of different class origins, and so on.

One chapter focuses more on the organizational capacity of the working class in India, and the contributions of trade unions to economic and political development. Since the 1970’s there has been a prevalent assertion by scholars, without sufficient base in data, to simply dismiss organized labour as fragmented and thus weak and ineffectual in improving workers’ situations; and that political affiliation and interference has weakened collective bargaining. In ‘Was the Indian Labor Movement Ever Co-opted? Evaluating Standard Accounts’, Emmanuel Teitelbaum reviews government data and Indian industrial and labour laws to show that the labour movement in India is more unified and more influential politically and in collective bargaining, than has been previously recognized. He even finds that competition among unions generates pressure for union leaders to put worker interests first, and in that sense, contradicts the view that multiple politically affiliated unions are purely detrimental to the labour movement.

Another highlight of the book is a chapter by Rina Agarwala, ‘From Work to Welfare’ – here, the focus is on how informal workers organize, and the declining debate on class politics in India, as instead, scholars debate the role of movements based more along lines of caste, religion and ethnicity – a trend which is linked with the use of informal labour by firms. She shows that in some respects, victories of formal labour ironically impel the Indian state and capital towards increased use of unprotected employment. Yet class struggle does not end – workers take up their own form of class politics – which articulates their unique class-based interests, distinct from those of protected formal workers. Significantly, they target the state rather than employers, and to do so, informal workers’ unions appeal to state responsibilities to citizens, rather than to workers’ rights. It results also in the demands changing – rather than workplace benefits alone, welfare benefits are demanded at home for the whole family. The example given is that of industry-specific (e.g., bidi workers) welfare boards. Under this scheme, workers get identity cards, which connects them to the state and grants the legitimacy of their claims for their social consumption needs – something which they are excluded from if their claims remain linked to their formal worker status with respect to their individual employer, rather than citizenship.

Other articles relate to class relations within ‘civil society’ – i.e., the different tendencies of middle-class vs. grassroots worker-class activists, and how these affect the characters of their mobilizations and activism. Groups originating from middle-class activists, such as are common in Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore, tend to frame the informal working class as clients for services provided by civil organizations – and eschew the ‘old politics’ of political parties. In contrast, organizations originating from the informal working class, mobilizing workers to make demands on the state, consciously protest and seek political representation through mainstream politics, and often see capturing state power as the ultimate end of their struggle.

Finally, in the chapter ‘Hegemonic Aspiration: New Middle Class Politics and India’s Democracy in Comparative Perspective’, by Leela Fernandes and Patrick Heller, the focus is on the middle class – the New Middle Class of India. Here, the concept of class is not that of who owns the means of production, but defined by economic and cultural capital, including for instance English language education. One can observe the ‘illiberal’ nature of the new middle class in India. What explains it? The writers say that the middle class is what articulates the hegemony of the ruling class. It is the illiberal hegemony, yet because of its minority electorally, and thus in terms of actual capacity for hegemony, the new middle class seeks another paradigm through which to expand its base and ‘hegemony’ – this by ideology of caste, gender, religion – nationalism – something that unifies the economic middle class with the greater masses of lower middle class and working classes.