‘Histories of Power’, the ‘Universalization of Capital’, and India’s Modi Moment: Between and Beyond Marxism and Postcolonial Theory

Capitalist development in India, and the politics of those who are its immediate victims, defies the main varieties of postcolonial theory and Marxism that are today in contentious debate, in which postcolonial theory is identified with culture and particularity, and Marxism with political economy and universalism. Rejecting this framing, I draw attention to recently translated works by Marx, debates in agrarian political economy, and writings that emphasize the temporal specificity of contemporary capitalist development in India. I show the ‘compulsion’ of capitalists to compete and workers to sell their labour is held back by the ongoing politics of hegemony: capitalists want state protection and support for accumulation, and democracy and rights provide the poor with limited but sometimes effective political power. As a result, the primitive accumulation process remains indefinitely incomplete, and mature capitalism, defined by some Marxists as ‘universal’, is held in a sustained state of deferral.