Chapter 3 Analysis: "The Politics of the Governed"

From Partha Chatterjee's The Politics of the Governed (Pages 53–78)

In Chapter 3 of Partha Chatterjee's seminal work, the author provides a deeply insightful analysis of postcolonial democratic politics in India. Titled “The Politics of the Governed,” the chapter is foundational in introducing a new political conceptual category: political society. Chatterjee moves away from traditional liberal-democratic frameworks which focus on state institutions and civil society, and instead centers the politics of subaltern groups, the marginalized, and the “governed” in the everyday postcolonial experience.

Redefining Political Categories: Civil vs Political Society

Chatterjee distinguishes sharply between civil society and political society. Civil society, in his critique, represents the space of the urban middle and upper classes—those who possess full access to the legal, institutional, and rational sphere of governance. This is the realm of elite organizations, NGOs, and liberal rights-based discourse.

On the other hand, political society encompasses the vast majority who are often outside this legal framework but still engage politically. These are informal settlements, slum dwellers, workers, peasants, and tribal populations who may not possess full legal citizenship or rights, yet negotiate their entitlements through direct political action, moral appeals, and populist mobilization. They do not belong to civil society but are deeply embedded in political society.

Governmentality and Everyday Politics

Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, Chatterjee illustrates how modern states try to regulate populations through welfare schemes, census, health, and education systems. However, the subaltern classes develop their own modes of political intervention. These are not based on legal entitlement but on moral, cultural, or pragmatic claims—what Chatterjee calls “negotiated governmentality.”

Through these tactics, the governed do not passively receive governance; instead, they become active political agents. Their politics, though not recognized by elite discourse, reshapes governance from below.

The Case of West Bengal: The Left and Political Society

A major empirical case in the chapter is the experience of rural West Bengal under the Left Front government. Chatterjee examines how:

• Land reform (Operation Barga)
• Decentralized panchayat governance
• Party-based clientelist networks

… all combined to incorporate the rural poor into a political society that secured them entitlements through their party allegiance. This created a populist regime of governmentality, based not on abstract rights but on practical arrangements of inclusion and loyalty.

Democracy Beyond Liberal Norms

Chatterjee critiques the normative liberal democratic model that expects universality, legality, and rationality. He argues that in most of the world, and particularly in India, the actual practice of democracy is deeply shaped by heterogeneity, informality, and negotiated legality.

The chapter insists that democracy must be understood not only through the ideal forms of citizenship and representation but also through the real practices of how people claim rights, access services, and organize collectively, often in conflict with state law.

Universal Citizenship vs. Particular Claims

One of the key tensions addressed is between the ideal of universal, equal citizenship and the reality of differentiated, group-based political claims (such as reservations, minority rights, SC/ST categories). The state, while promoting a universal citizen subject, is compelled by political reality to recognize and accommodate particular identities.

These particular identities, rather than being simply backward remnants, are in fact produced and shaped by modern governmentality itself. Chatterjee argues that the negotiation between these two logics—the universal and the particular—is where actual politics unfolds in postcolonial democracies.

Implications and Political Theory

Chatterjee’s theoretical innovation challenges political scientists and theorists to look beyond Western-centric models. His concept of political society urges scholars to study:

• Informal politics
• Slum governance and urban poverty
• Caste-based and identity-based movements
• Negotiated state-society relations

It offers an alternative framework where democracy is rethought through the lived experience of the majority who are excluded from “civil society” but nonetheless shape politics every day.

Conclusion

Chapter 3 of The Politics of the Governed marks a crucial intervention in political theory, particularly in the understanding of postcolonial democracies. Chatterjee forces us to ask: Who are the true political actors? Who constitutes the political public? And how do power, legitimacy, and claims emerge outside the formal arenas of democracy?

Through the lens of political society, the governed are not passive recipients but active political agents. Their politics may not be captured in textbooks, but it is where the real story of democracy in “most of the world” takes place.