Subsistence Economy in a Subverted Development: Rethinking Development Concretely

In the backdrop of the understanding given by Sanyal’s work relating the accumulation process to the subsistence economy and these in turn to legitimization and hegemony of accumulation through regulation of primitive accumulation and governmentality, we present concrete experiences from a site of study namely, Lingala and Balmur Mandals of Mahabubnagar district that are habitats for Chenchu Tribes who are located well within the subsistence economy. The subsistence economy bears a lot of similarities to the way that Sanyal characterizes a subsistence economy especially in the plains. There are also the governmentality kind of interventions one finds in the form of several welfare programmes such as employment guarantee, health insurance, food security, et cetera, The central question, however, is whether the empirical facts hold the systemic model, as imagined by Sanyal, true? Are primitive accumulation processes being regulated? Are governmentality functions causing a cost-benefit-based systematic transfers of surpluses from the capitalist economy to the subsistence economy? Are these transfers reproducing the subsistence economy along side the ever expanding capitalist economy? Is the governmentality and the interface between the accumulation processes and the subsistence economy systematically generating letimization and hegemony of the accumulative economy? The above stated questions will be addressed by studying five villages Appapurpenta and Erlapenta, Chenchugudem, Rayavaram, and Vadde Rayavaram villages located in Lingala and Balmur Mandals of Mahabubnagar District. These villages are predominantly inhabited by primitive Tribal groups belonging to Chechus and other Tribal group namely, Lambadas as well as other non-Tribal households.