Description
Book SynopsisLisa Mitchell explores the historical and contemporary methods of collective assembly that people in India use to hold elected officials and government administrators accountable.
Table of ContentsA Note on Transliteration and Spelling ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. Hailing the State: Collective Assembly, Democracy, and Representation 1
Part I. Seeking Audience
1. Sit-In Demonstrations and Hunger Strikes: From
Dharna as Door-Sitting to Dharna Chowk 43
2. Seeking Audience: Refusals to Listen, “Style,” and the Politics of Recognition 67
3. Collective Assembly and the “Roar of the People”: Corporeal Forms of “Making Known” and the Deliberative Turn 94
4. The General Strike: Collective Action at the Other End of the Commodity Chain 122
Part II. The Criminal and the Political
5. Alarm Chain Pulling: The Criminal and the Political in the Writing of History 151
6. Rail and Road Blockades: Illiberal or Participatory Democracy? 168
7. Rallies, Processions and
Yātrās: Ticketless Travel and the Journey to “Political Arrival” 197
Conclusion. Of Human Chains and Guinness Records: Attention, Recognition, and the Fate of Democracy amidst Changing Mediascapes 216
Notes 225
Bibliography 265
Index 287
