Development as Dignity: Dissensus, Equality and Contentious Politics in Bihar, India

Abstract

This paper makes an analytical case for the understanding of development as a process that enables people to reclaim their dignity and interrogate inegalitarian social relations. It is motivated by the ongoing debate within development studies between those who propound a teleological view of development and those who adopt the opposing view that the process must not obliterate historical and cultural difference. The former view is informed by an assumption that the human condition can and should be improved, and the trajectory of such improvement is predetermined and predictable. The latter view is ambivalent, not only about the possibility of improvement, but also about its desirability. Against this dichotomy, this paper urges scholars of development to consider that people might envisage that the social inequalities they experience could be reduced, irrespective of “improvement”. The ethnography on which the paper draws cover show the way in which a group of agricultural labourer households stigmatised as “untouchable” — and alleged to be illegally squatting on public property—stand their ground violent opposition by local elites. While servility to and quiescence with elite opinion would allow them to “improve” their lives by relocating to a less contentious space, community members assert their ethical claims on the disputed property without flinching. They do this not because they like to live in squalid conditions, but because complying with elite diktats is an affront to their dignity.