Abstraction as violence and the radical democratic alternative: A political-ecological critique of India's development process

The argument of this thesis is that all events are interconnected, so that isolating events is distorting their multiple inter-relationships, while creating a socio-political arrangement that reflects interconnectedness is enhancing the ever-expanding possibilities for self-determination. "Abstraction as violence" denotes the mental and socio-political processes that mystify and thereby violate interdependence. Take GNP, for example. It is a linguistic construct, undergirded by the view that growth is necessary. Each percentage increase in GNP hides, nonetheless, the ecological devastation wrought by growth and the accompanying human suffering of rural people in the developing world whose very survival depends on access to their natural surroundings. Abstraction as violence, therefore, points up both the ideological/structural mystification and the physical harm that stem from the deployment of GNP. "Radical democracy" is the political alternative to dualistic human constructs that impede interdependence. The deployment of this alternative is aimed at transforming abstract politics into a non-hierarchical, plural yet intersubjective politics. And the thesis argues that the possibilities for this transformation lie in the rise of new social movements.;While Chapter I of the thesis develops the theoretical basis of this argument, Chapters II and III illustrate the argument's ecological and socio-political dimensions in the context of India's post-independence development. Chapter II links the forces of abstraction of India's growth process (viz. a centralized bureaucracy, environmental law, urban-industrial development) to the country's severe environmental degradation and the increasing pauperization of the rural poor. Special attention is paid to the consequences of deforestation. Chapter III focuses on the successful challenge to the State by a grass-roots forestry movement--Chipko. The chapter examines the factors explaining the rise of Chipko and then investigates the significance of Chipko as "new social movement" for politics in general, and India's development in particular.;The thesis relies upon the following literature and debates: Mahayana Buddhist/Whiteheadian non-dualism; Post-Marxist democratic and State theory; New Social Movements; Modern vs. Postmodern politics; Deep vs. Social Ecology; Eco-Feminism; development theories and strategies; Sustainable Development; commercial vs. community forestry; environmental policy and law.