Exploring the Political in South Asia is devoted to the publication of research on the political cultures of the region. The books in this Series will present qualitative and quantitative analyses grounded in field research, and will explore the cultures of democracies in their everyday local settings, specifically the workings of modern political institutions, practices of political mobilisation, manoeuvres of high politics, structures of popular beliefs, content of political ideologies and styles of political leadership, amongst others. Through fine-grained descriptions of particular settings in South Asia, the studies presented in this Series will inform, and have implications for, general discussions of democracy and politics elsewhere in the world.
Edited
By David Gilmartin, Pamela Price, Arild Engelsen Ruud
August 09, 2019
This book brings ethnographies of everyday power and ritual into dialogue with intellectual studies of theology and political theory. It underscores the importance of academic collaboration between scholars of religion, anthropology, and history in uncovering the structures of thinking and action ...
Edited
By Amélie Blom, Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal
July 11, 2019
This book highlights the role of emotions in the contentious politics of modern South Asia. It brings new methodological, theoretical and empirical insights to the mutual constitution of emotions and mobilisations in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. As such, it addresses three distinct but related ...
Edited
By Clarinda Still
June 14, 2019
India‘s economic growth has brought opportunities for many but to what extent has it benefitted its ethnically-shaped underclass: the Dalits? Have Dalits fared better in a neoliberal India or have structural economic and social changes served to magnify Dalit disadvantage? This volume offers a ...
By E Raghavan, James Manor
August 14, 2018
This book examines certain changes in the political make-up of Karnataka, between the early 1970s and the late 1980s, which, in turn, led to the birth of a unique democracy in the state. In a departure from most studies on political science and political history which pay little or no attention to ...
By Manuela Ciotti
August 14, 2018
Firmly situated within the analytics of the political economy of a north Indian province, this book explores self-fashioning in pursuit of the modern amongst low-caste Chamars. Challenging existing accounts of national modernity in the non-West, the book argues that subaltern classes shape their ...
By Lucia Michelutti
August 10, 2018
The book is an ethnographic exploration of how ‘democracy’ takes social and cultural roots in India and in the process shapes the nature of popular politics. It centres on a historically marginalised caste who in recent years has become one of the most assertive and politically powerful communities...
By Nicolas Martin
December 04, 2017
This book offers unique insights into the changing nature of power and hierarchy in rural Pakistan from colonial times to present day. It shows how electoral politics and the erosion of traditional patron–client ties have not empowered the lower classes. The monograph highlights the persistence of ...
By Andrew Sanchez
November 28, 2017
Criminal Capital explores the relationship between neoliberalism, criminality and the reshaping of class in modern India. It discusses how the political vocabularies of urban industrial workers reflect the processes by which power is distributed across the region. Based upon field research among a ...
Edited
By Uday Chandra, Geir Heierstad, Kenneth Bo Nielsen
November 28, 2017
This volume offers for the first time a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the making and maintenance of a modern caste society in colonial and postcolonial West Bengal in India. Drawing on cutting-edge multidisciplinary scholarship, it explains why caste continues to be neglected in the ...
By Mukulika Banerjee
March 14, 2014
Why India Votes? offers a fascinating account of the Indian electorate through a series of comprehensive ethnographic explorations conducted across the country — Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan. It ...
Edited
By Pamela Price, Arild Engelsen Ruud
January 21, 2016
Taking cognisance of the lack of studies on leadership in modern India, this book explores how leadership is practiced in the Indian context, examining this across varied domains — from rural settings and urban neighbourhoods to political parties and state governments. The importance of individual ...
Edited
By Christophe Jaffrelot, Sanjay Kumar
March 09, 2009
For decades, India has been a conservative democracy governed by the upper caste notables coming from the urban bourgeoisie, the landowning aristocracy and the intelligentsia. The democratisation of the ‘world’s largest democracy’ started with the rise of peasants’ parties and the politicisation of...
