The Making of Land and The Making of India

Land is not simply the solid surface of the earth. As instantiations of territory, property, the sacred, history and memory, as sites of authority, access and exclusion, land is always in the making. The state and market mobilise land for ''development''. They are also stretched into socially compromised, shadowy arrangements while effecting order. Political practices can contest such processes, but may equally become co-opted. The making of land thus reveals the making of ''India'' itself.