Questions for Whitehead, ‘Submerged and Submerging Voices’
1. What event was considered a ‘body blow’ for environmental organizations
in India?
2. What aspect of Gramsci’s theory does this paper think is relevant to
understanding the failures of environmental movements in India recently?
3. Why does Whitehead think that repression now emanates from within civil
society in contemporary India?
4. How did the state appear to be acting above contending interests of civil
society?
5. How did the Gujarat government persuade local adivasi leaders to
abandon the NBA?
6. How did the NBA react to their withdrawal from the movement?
7. What were some of the underlying reasons for the rift between the
adivasis and the urban leadership of the NBA?
8. How were the adivasi leaders portrayed to national and international
media by urban activists?
9. What were some of the tensions and strains in this alliance between
urban-based environmentalists and local adivasi leaders?
10. What are the differences between environmental politics and those based
on adivasi control of lands and resources?
11. The NBA’s 20-year struggle against the state and World Bank spanned a
major economic change in India. What was the nature of this change?
12. How did the role of the state change in this period?
13. How did the role of NGOs change in this period?
14. What effects did these international and national changes have on
resistance organizations like the NBA?
15. Why does Whitehead refer to those adivasis who finally accepted a
government offer as the real subalterns?
16. Do you agree with her that the NBA had been pushed into becoming a
kind of human rights organization?