Left in the dark: Colonial racial capitalism and solar energy transitions in India

Abstract

India is globally renowned as a burgeoning solar energy superpower. Solar park development is occurring in the Indian context of an ascendant Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) that is violent and oppressive to minority populations, particularly against Muslims and Dalits. Yet it remains unclear how Hindutva influences solar-related land politics and resource access. Utilizing original data from extensive mixed methods fieldwork to examine the case studies of the Bhadla Solar Park and the Fatehgarh Solar Park in Rajasthan, we document a clear pattern of dispossessionary forces driving solar development, compounding the harms of climate coloniality. Drawing on literature from political ecology and racial capitalism, we ask the following research questions: 1) How do distribution conflicts arising from uneven solar development vary between projects?; 2) To what extent does solar park development perpetuate colonial production relations and the racialized dispossession of local populations? Solar park development in Rajasthan has not translated into the upliftment or empowerment of marginalized peasants struggling with energy poverty. On the contrary, solar coloniality is perpetuating and compounding the harms of climate coloniality, mitigating carbon emissions through the landed extraction of photons and the erasure of racialized peasants. Hindutva influences solar development in ways that reproduce marginality and vulnerability of racialized groups burdened by the dispossession of land and resources for solar park development for the benefit of domestic and international firms. Emancipatory and redistributive solar interventions are vital for ensuring the survival of those left in the dark within sustainable sacrifice zones by dispossessionary and destructive energy transitions.