Existing theoretical perspectives, whether Marx's primitive accumulation or Harvey's accumulation by dispossession, are not adequate for understanding the political economy of land dispossession under capitalism--in India or elsewhere. This paper advances the concept of "regimes of dispossession" as a better way of understanding how dispossession is politically organised in different socio-historical contexts to serve different class interests with variable economic effects and political "success." The land-grabs of the neo-liberal period in India represent the emergence of a new regime of redistributing landed wealth upwards, one that is demonstrably less "developmental" than its Nehruvian predecessor--and certainly more politically tenuous. The paper shows how the concept of regimes of dispossession aids in a better understanding of (i) the relationship between land-grabs and specific historical phases of capitalism, and (ii) India's contemporary land question.
