The Agrarian Imagination: Development and the Art of the Impossible

This collection of 16 essays is an unflinching assessment of the systems that dictate how we live, labour and interact with one another and with the planet. It rejects the notion that 'development' is an inherently good idea by exposing how the standard model—driven by the neoliberal capitalism, corporate interests and top-down policy—functions as an engine of injustice, displacement and ecological destruction.

The essays ask who truly benefits from the structures that shape our world and whether current notions of ‘progress’ genuinely serve the majority or protect the natural world. From the persistent agrarian struggles in India to the devastating legacy of the Bhopal disaster, the book provides concrete evidence of the violence and inequality woven into policies imposed from above.

Drawing on critical thinkers like Jiddu Krishnamurti, Mahatma Gandhi, Wendell Berry, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Michel Foucault, this work blends philosophical critique with real-world observation and urgent reportage. The power dynamics are exposed, and there is a call for alternative ways of seeing and practising change. Recurring threads, including food sovereignty, ecological care and resistance, give the collection its core structure and emotional weight.

The book speaks directly to anyone seeking to understand how the prevailing idea of development impacts ordinary life and what it takes to build a different, more equitable future.

Chapter 1 The Development Issue

Chapter 2 Crisis and Control: Endgame Logic of Late Capitalism

Chapter 3 Grief, Guilt and Graffiti: The Legacy of ‘Killer Carbide’

Chapter 4 Comforting Myth in a Dispossessed Reality

Chapter 5 Toxic Platter for India

Chapter 6 Big Ag’s Humanitarian Propaganda

Chapter 7 The Sour Taste of Modern Development

Chapter 8 Decentralisation: India’s Fruit and Vegetable Markets

Chapter 9 Rhythm of the Lanes and the Repercussions of Progress

Chapter 10 Beneath the Flyover, Beside the Temple

Chapter 11 Copenhagenising Cities

Chapter 12 The Agrarian Imagination: Iron Cage of Agri-Rationality and Dostoevsky’s Moral Underground

Chapter 13 Agrarianism: The Moral Function of ‘The Impossible’

Chapter 14 Revolution from the Soil in Burkina Faso

Chapter 15 Revolutionising the Self

Chapter 16 Moving Forward