Modern South Asia – serie

One of the most remarkable stories of immigration in the last half century is that of Indians to the United States. People of Indian origin make up a little over one percent of the American population now, up from barely half a percent at the turn of the millennium. Complete with a new epilogue, the paperback edition of The Other One Percent is a careful, data-driven, and comprehensive account of the three core processes-selection, assimilation, and entrepreneurship-that have led to this rapid rise. This unique phenomenon is driven by-and, in turn, has influenced-wide-ranging changes, especially the ongoing revolution in information technology and its impact on economic globalization, immigration policies in the U.S., higher education policies in India, and foreign policies of both nations. If the overall picture is one of economic success, the details reveal the critical issues faced by Indian immigrants.

Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister and Minister of External Affairs from 1947 to 1964, set the framework of foreign policy which has remained India's reference point until the present. One of the most significant leaders of the twentieth century, Nehru came to power in the early years of the Cold War, determined to assert independent India's influence and interests in Asia and beyond. Drawing on the Nehru Papers, Francine Frankel's When Nehru Looked East reinterprets the doctrine of non-alignment with which Nehru is most closely identified to reveal its strategic purpose.Analyzing India-US and India-China relations during this period, Frankel explains how these parties came to distrust each other. From the outset, Nehru's vision of India's destiny as a great power collided with that of the US as leader and protector of the free world. He considered the US a rival in South and Southeast Asia and the Middle East and carried out an active diplomacy to dissuade newly independent nations from joining US-led anti-communist mutual security alliances and instead follow India's example of non-alignment. He did not see a threat from the Soviet Union and believed, despite the dispute with China over the northern border, that India's approach would bring India and China together as advocates of Asianism to counter American penetration in the region. This historic miscalculation, manifested in the 1962 China-India War, overthrew the pillars of Nehru's foreign policy.Frankel provides the most authoritative account yet of the origins of India-US suspicions and India-China rivalries. Outlasting the Cold War, Nehru's worldview lived on in the mindset of successor generations, making it difficult for the US and India to form a strategic partnership and establish a natural balance in Asia.

Across the world, governments design and implement policies with the explicit goal of promoting social justice. But can such institutions change entrenched social norms? And what effects should we expect from differently designed policies? Francesca R. Jensenius' Social Justice through Inclusion is an empirically rich study of one of the most extensive electoral quota systems in the world: the reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes (SCs, the former "untouchables") in India's legislative assemblies. Combining evidence from quantitative datasets from the period 1969-2012, archival work, and in-depth interviews with politicians, civil servants, and voters across India, the book explores the long-term effects of electoral quotas for the political elite and the general population. It shows that the quota system has played an important role in reducing caste-based discrimination, particularly at the elite level. Interestingly, this is not because the system has led to more group representation - SC politicians working specifically for SC interests - but because it has made possible the creation and empowerment of a new SC elite who have gradually become integrated into mainstream politics. This is a study of India, but the findings and discussions have broader implications. Policies such as quotas are usually supported with arguments about various assumed positive long-term consequences. The nuanced discussions in this book shed light on how electoral quotas for SCs have shaped the incentives for politicians, parties, and voters, and indicate the trade-offs inherent in how such policies of group inclusion are designed.

Across the world, governments design and implement policies with the explicit goal of promoting social justice. But can such institutions change entrenched social norms? And what effects should we expect from differently designed policies? Francesca R. Jensenius' Social Justice through Inclusion is an empirically rich study of one of the most extensive electoral quota systems in the world: the reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes (SCs, the former "untouchables") in India's legislative assemblies. Combining evidence from quantitative datasets from the period 1969-2012, archival work, and in-depth interviews with politicians, civil servants, and voters across India, the book explores the long-term effects of electoral quotas for the political elite and the general population. It shows that the quota system has played an important role in reducing caste-based discrimination, particularly at the elite level. Interestingly, this is not because the system has led to more group representation - SC politicians working specifically for SC interests - but because it has made possible the creation and empowerment of a new SC elite who have gradually become integrated into mainstream politics. This is a study of India, but the findings and discussions have broader implications. Policies such as quotas are usually supported with arguments about various assumed positive long-term consequences. The nuanced discussions in this book shed light on how electoral quotas for SCs have shaped the incentives for politicians, parties, and voters, and indicate the trade-offs inherent in how such policies of group inclusion are designed.

One of the most remarkable stories of immigration in the last half century is that of Indians to the United States. People of Indian origin make up a little over one percent of the American population now, up from barely half a percent at the turn of the millennium. Not only has its recent growth been extraordinary, but this population from a developing nation with low human capital is now the most-educated and highest-income group in the worlds most advanced nation. The Other One Percent is a careful, data-driven, and comprehensive account of the three core processesselection, assimilation, and entrepreneurshipthat have led to this rapid rise. This unique phenomenon is driven byand, in turn, has influencedwide-ranging changes, especially the ongoing revolution in information technology and its impact on economic globalization, immigration policies in the U.S., higher education policies in India, and foreign policies of both nations. If the overall picture is one of economic success, the details reveal the critical issues faced by the immigrants stemming from the social, linguistic, and class structure in India, the professional and geographic distribution in the U.S., the simultaneous expressions of pan-Indian and regional identities and simultaneous leadership in high-skill industries (like computers and medicine) and low-skill industries (like hospitality and retail trade), and the multi-generational challenges of a diverse group from the worlds largest democracy fitting into its oldest.

Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against land dispossession. Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound shift in regimes of dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, since the 1990s state governments have become land brokers for private real estate capital. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for a private Special Economic Zone, the book ethnographically illustrates the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism driving dispossession in contemporary India. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers in "Rajpura," the book meticulously documents the destruction of agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of rural labor, the spatial uneveness of infrastructure provision, and the dramatic consequences of real estate speculation for social inequality and village politics. Illuminating the structural underpinnings of land struggles in contemporary India, this book will resonate in any place where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.

Since the mid-2000s, India has been beset by widespread farmer protests against "land grabs." Dispossession Without Development demonstrates that beneath these conflicts lay a profound transformation in the political economy of land dispossession. While the postcolonial Indian state dispossessed land mostly for public-sector industry and infrastructure, the adoption of neoliberal economic policies in the early 1990s prompted state governments to become land brokers for private real estate capital. This new regime of dispossession culminated with private Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the mid-2000s. Using the case of a village in Rajasthan that was dispossessed for one of North India's largest SEZs, the book ethnographically illustrates how the zone's real estate-driven and knowledge-intensive growth intersected with pre-existing agrarian inequalities to generate a peculiar and exclusionary trajectory of social change. Taking us into the lives of diverse villagers, the book meticulously documents the destruction of their agricultural livelihoods, the marginalization of their labor, and their exclusion from the zone's "world-class" infrastructure. Most poignantly, it shows farmers' unequal capacities to profit from dramatic land speculation and the consequences of this for village social relations and politics. Illuminating the exclusionary trajectory of capitalism that underlay land conflicts in contemporary India, Dispossession Without Development also advances a novel theory of land dispossession. This book will resonate in both India and many other places where "land grabs" have fueled conflict in recent years.

In recent decades, the issue of gender-based violence has become heavily politicized in India. Yet, Indian law enforcement personnel continue to be biased against women and overburdened. In Capable Women, Incapable States, Poulami Roychowdhury asks how women claim rights within these conditions. Through long term ethnography, she provides an in-depth lens on rights negotiations in the world's largest democracy, detailing their social and political effects. Roychowdhury finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules, but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. And they behave this way because law enforcement personnel do not protect women from harm but do allow women to take the law into their own hands.These negotiations do not enhance legal enforcement. Instead, they create a space where capable women can extract concessions outside the law, all while shouldering a new burden of labor and risk. A unique theory of gender inequality and governance, Capable Women, Incapable States forces us to rethink the effects of rights activism across large parts of the world where political mobilization confronts negligent criminal justice systems.

In recent decades, the issue of gender-based violence has become heavily politicized in India. Yet, Indian law enforcement personnel continue to be biased against women and overburdened. In Capable Women, Incapable States, Poulami Roychowdhury asks how women claim rights within these conditions. Through long term ethnography, she provides an in-depth lens on rights negotiations in the world's largest democracy, detailing their social and political effects. Roychowdhury finds that women interact with the law not by following legal procedure or abiding by the rules, but by deploying collective threats and doing the work of the state themselves. And they behave this way because law enforcement personnel do not protect women from harm but do allow women to take the law into their own hands.These negotiations do not enhance legal enforcement. Instead, they create a space where capable women can extract concessions outside the law, all while shouldering a new burden of labor and risk. A unique theory of gender inequality and governance, Capable Women, Incapable States forces us to rethink the effects of rights activism across large parts of the world where political mobilization confronts negligent criminal justice systems.

Civilian control over the military is widely hailed as one of the major successes of India's democracy. Because it is so rare, especially among post-colonial states, this control is rightfully celebrated. But has this come at a cost? In The Absent Dialogue, Anit Mukherjee argues that the pattern of civil-military relations in India has hampered its military effectiveness. Diving deep into understanding the organization and internal processes within the Indian military, he explains how Indian politicians and bureaucrats have long been content with the formal and ritualistic exercise of civilian control, while the military continues to operate in institutional silos. Yet, there has been little substantive engagement between the two. To support this claim, Mukherjee closely examines the variables most closely associated with military effectiveness-weapons procurement, jointness (the ability of separate military services to operate together), officer education, promotion policies, and defense planning. Further, Mukherjee shows how India's pattern of civil-military relations-best characterized as an absent dialogue-adversely affects each of these processes. While the book focuses on India, it also highlights the importance of civilian expertise and institutional design in enhancing civilian control and military effectiveness in other democracies. Informed by more than a hundred and fifty interviews and recently available archival material, The Absent Dialogue sheds new light on India's military and will reshape our understanding of both the history and contemporary dynamics of civil-military relations and recurring problems therein.

Over the last few decades, politics in India has moved steadily in a pro-business direction. This shift has important implications for both government and citizens. In Business and Politics in India, leading scholars of Indian politics have gathered to offer an analytical synthesis of this vast topic. Collectively, they cover the many strategies that businesses have used to exert their newfound power in recent times and organize the book around a few central concerns. They first analyze the nature of business power and how it shapes political change in India. Second, they look at the consequences of business' growing power on some important issue areas-labor, land, urban governance, and the media. Finally, they take account of regional variation and analyze state-business relations. This definitive account offers significant insights into how and why corporations have increased their power in contemporary Indian politics.

Over the last few decades, politics in India has moved steadily in a pro-business direction. This shift has important implications for both government and citizens. In Business and Politics in India, leading scholars of Indian politics have gathered to offer an analytical synthesis of this vast topic. Collectively, they cover the many strategies that businesses have used to exert their newfound power in recent times and organize the book around a few central concerns. They first analyze the nature of business power and how it shapes political change in India. Second, they look at the consequences of business' growing power on some important issue areas-labor, land, urban governance, and the media. Finally, they take account of regional variation and analyze state-business relations. This definitive account offers significant insights into how and why corporations have increased their power in contemporary Indian politics.

India's over 200 million Dalits, once called "untouchables," have been mobilized by social movements and political parties, but the outcomes of this mobilization are puzzling. Dalits' ethnic parties have performed poorly in elections in states where movements demanding social equality have been strong while they have succeeded in states where such movements have been entirely absent or weak. In Mobilizing the Marginalized, Amit Ahuja demonstrates that the collective action of marginalized groups--those that are historically stigmatized and disproportionately poor — is distinct. Drawing on extensive original research conducted across four of India's largest states, he shows, for the marginalized, social mobilization undermines the bloc voting their ethnic parties' rely on for electoral triumph and increases multi-ethnic political parties' competition for marginalized votes. He presents evidence showing that a marginalized group gains more from participating in a social movement and dividing support among parties than from voting as a bloc for an ethnic party.

India's over 200 million Dalits, once called "untouchables," have been mobilized by social movements and political parties, but the outcomes of this mobilization are puzzling. Dalits' ethnic parties have performed poorly in elections in states where movements demanding social equality have been strong while they have succeeded in states where such movements have been entirely absent or weak. In Mobilizing the Marginalized, Amit Ahuja demonstrates that the collective action of marginalized groups--those that are historically stigmatized and disproportionately poor — is distinct. Drawing on extensive original research conducted across four of India's largest states, he shows, for the marginalized, social mobilization undermines the bloc voting their ethnic parties' rely on for electoral triumph and increases multi-ethnic political parties' competition for marginalized votes. He presents evidence showing that a marginalized group gains more from participating in a social movement and dividing support among parties than from voting as a bloc for an ethnic party.

In Gambling with Violence, Yelena Biberman tackles a global problem that is particularly consequential for Pakistan and India: state outsourcing of violence to ordinary civilians, criminals, and ex-insurgents. Why would these countries gamble with their own national security by outsourcing violencearming nonstate actors inside their own borders? Drawing on over 200 interviews, archival research, and fieldwork conducted across Asia, Europe, and North America, Biberman introduces the "balance-of-interests" thesis to deepen our understanding of state-nonstate alliances in civil war. This framework centers on the distribution of power during war and shows how various combinations of interests result in distinct types of coalitions. Incorporating case studies of civil war and counterinsurgency, her book sheds light on how militias, alliances, and South Asian security connect today.

In Gambling with Violence, Yelena Biberman tackles a global problem that is particularly consequential for Pakistan and India: state outsourcing of violence to ordinary civilians, criminals, and ex-insurgents. Why would these countries gamble with their own national security by outsourcing violence - arming nonstate actors inside their own borders? Drawing on over 200 interviews, archival research, and fieldwork conducted across Asia, Europe, and North America, Biberman introduces the "balance-of-interests" thesis to deepen our understanding of state-nonstate alliances in civil war. This framework centers on the distribution of power during war and shows how various combinations of interests result in distinct types of coalitions. Incorporating case studies of civil war and counterinsurgency, her book sheds light on how militias, alliances, and South Asian security connect today.

Scholars of distributive politics often emphasize partisanship and clientelism. However, as Jennifer Bussell demonstrates in Clients and Constituents, legislators in "patronage democracies" also provide substantial constituency service: non-contingent, direct assistance to individual citizens. Bussell shows how the uneven character of access to services at the local level-often due to biased allocation on the part of local intermediaries-generates demand for help from higher-level officials. The nature of these appeals in turn provides incentives for politicians to help their constituents obtain public benefits. Drawing on a new cross-national dataset and extensive evidence from India-including sustained qualitative shadowing of politicians, novel elite and citizen surveys, and an experimental audit study with a near census of Indian state and national legislators-this book provides a theoretical and empirical examination of political responsiveness in developing countries. It highlights the potential for an under-appreciated form of democratic accountability, one that is however rooted in the character of patronage-based politics.

Scholars of distributive politics often emphasize partisanship and clientelism. However, as Jennifer Bussell demonstrates in Clients and Constituents, legislators in "patronage democracies" also provide substantial constituency service: non-contingent, direct assistance to individual citizens. Bussell shows how the uneven character of access to services at the local level-often due to biased allocation on the part of local intermediaries-generates demand for help from higher-level officials. The nature of these appeals in turn provides incentives for politicians to help their constituents obtain public benefits. Drawing on a new cross-national dataset and extensive evidence from India-including sustained qualitative shadowing of politicians, novel elite and citizen surveys, and an experimental audit study with a near census of Indian state and national legislators-this book provides a theoretical and empirical examination of political responsiveness in developing countries. It highlights the potential for an under-appreciated form of democratic accountability, one that is however rooted in the character of patronage-based politics.

How, in the absence of institutional mechanisms, do Maoist rebels in India quit an ongoing insurgency without getting killed?How do rebels give up arms and return to the same political processes that they had once sought to overthrow? The question of weaning rebels away from extremist groups is highly significant in counterinsurgency and in the pacification of insurgencies. In Farewell to Arms, Rumela Sen goes to the rebels themselves and breaks down the protracted process of rebel retirement into a multi-staged journey as the rebels see it. She draws on several rounds of interviews with current and former Maoist rebels as well as security personnel, administrators, activists, politicians, and civilians in two conflict zones in North and South India. The choice to quit an insurgency, she finds, depends on locally embedded, informal exit networks. The relative weakness of these networks in North India means that fewer rebels quit than in the South, where more feel that they can disarm without getting killed. Sen shows that these networks grow out of the grassroots civic associations in the gray zone of state-insurgency interface. Correcting the course for future policy, Sen provides a new explanation of rebel retirement that will be essential to any policymaker or scholar working to end protracted insurgencies.

How, in the absence of institutional mechanisms, do Maoist rebels in India quit an ongoing insurgency without getting killed?How do rebels give up arms and return to the same political processes that they had once sought to overthrow? The question of weaning rebels away from extremist groups is highly significant in counterinsurgency and in the pacification of insurgencies. In Farewell to Arms, Rumela Sen goes to the rebels themselves and breaks down the protracted process of rebel retirement into a multi-staged journey as the rebels see it. She draws on several rounds of interviews with current and former Maoist rebels as well as security personnel, administrators, activists, politicians, and civilians in two conflict zones in North and South India. The choice to quit an insurgency, she finds, depends on locally embedded, informal exit networks. The relative weakness of these networks in North India means that fewer rebels quit than in the South, where more feel that they can disarm without getting killed. Sen shows that these networks grow out of the grassroots civic associations in the gray zone of state-insurgency interface. Correcting the course for future policy, Sen provides a new explanation of rebel retirement that will be essential to any policymaker or scholar working to end protracted insurgencies.

A collection of essays that situates and furthers contemporary debates around the prospects of democracy in diverse societies within and beyond the West. Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism examines the relationship between the functioning of democracy and the prior existence of religious plurality in three societies outside the West: India, Pakistan, and Turkey. All three societies had on one hand deep religious diversity and on the other long histories as imperial states that responded to religious diversity through their specific pre-modern imperial institutions. Each country has followed a unique historical trajectory with regard to crafting democratic institutions to deal with such extreme diversity. The volume focuses on three core themes: historical trends before the modern state's emergence that had lasting effects; the genealogies of both the state and religion in politics and law; and the problem of violence toward and domination over religious out-groups. Volume editors Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviarj, and Vatsal Naresh have gathered a group of leading scholars across political science, sociology, history, and law to examine this multifaceted topic. Together, they illuminate various trajectories of political thought, state policy, and the exercise of social power during and following a transition to democracy. Just as importantly, they ask us to reflexively examine the political categories and models that shape our understanding of what has unfolded in South Asia and Turkey.

A collection of essays that situates and furthers contemporary debates around the prospects of democracy in diverse societies within and beyond the West. Negotiating Democracy and Religious Pluralism examines the relationship between the functioning of democracy and the prior existence of religious plurality in three societies outside the West: India, Pakistan, and Turkey. All three societies had on one hand deep religious diversity and on the other long histories as imperial states that responded to religious diversity through their specific pre-modern imperial institutions. Each country has followed a unique historical trajectory with regard to crafting democratic institutions to deal with such extreme diversity. The volume focuses on three core themes: historical trends before the modern state's emergence that had lasting effects; the genealogies of both the state and religion in politics and law; and the problem of violence toward and domination over religious out-groups. Volume editors Karen Barkey, Sudipta Kaviarj, and Vatsal Naresh have gathered a group of leading scholars across political science, sociology, history, and law to examine this multifaceted topic. Together, they illuminate various trajectories of political thought, state policy, and the exercise of social power during and following a transition to democracy. Just as importantly, they ask us to reflexively examine the political categories and models that shape our understanding of what has unfolded in South Asia and Turkey.

Diving into an original and unusually positive case study from India, Patching Development shows how development programs can be designed to work.How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from entrenched local power systems. In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan presents an ethnography of one of the largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines NREGA's implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He finds that the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development. "Patching development" is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process that makes local information about implementation visible through technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents, institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. A highly original account with global significance, this book casts new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology in novel ways to implement development programs.

Diving into an original and unusually positive case study from India, Patching Development shows how development programs can be designed to work.How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from entrenched local power systems. In Patching Development, Rajesh Veeraraghavan presents an ethnography of one of the largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines NREGA's implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He finds that the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local implementation and information, a process of patching development. "Patching development" is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process that makes local information about implementation visible through technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents, institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. A highly original account with global significance, this book casts new light on the challenges and benefits of using information and technology in novel ways to implement development programs.

An ethnographic study of Indian democracy that shows how agrarian life creates values of citizenship and active engagement that are essential for the cultivation of democracy.Cultivating Democracy provides a compelling ethnographic analysis of the relationship between formal political institutions and everyday citizenship in rural India. Banerjee draws on deep engagement with the people and social life in two West Bengal villages from 1998-2013, during election campaigns and in the times between, to show how the micro-politics of their day-to-day life builds active engagement with the macro-politics of state and nation. Her sensitive analysis focuses on several "events" in the life of the villages shows how India's agrarian rural society helps create practices and conceptual space for these citizens to be effective participants in India's great democratic exercises. Specifically, she shows how the villagers' creative practices around their kinship, farming and religion, while navigating encounters with local communist cadres, constitute a vital and continuing cultivation of those republican virtues of cooperation, civility, solidarity and vigilance which the visionary Ambedkar considered essential for the success of Indian democracy. At a time when so much of that constitutional vision is under threat, this book provides a crucial scholarly rebuttal to all, on Right or Left, who dismiss rural citizens' political capacities and democratic values. This book will appeal to anyone interested in India's political culture and future, its rural society, or the continuing relevance of political anthropology.

An ethnographic study of Indian democracy that shows how agrarian life creates values of citizenship and active engagement that are essential for the cultivation of democracy.Cultivating Democracy provides a compelling ethnographic analysis of the relationship between formal political institutions and everyday citizenship in rural India. Banerjee draws on deep engagement with the people and social life in two West Bengal villages from 1998-2013, during election campaigns and in the times between, to show how the micro-politics of their day-to-day life builds active engagement with the macro-politics of state and nation. Her sensitive analysis focuses on several "events" in the life of the villages shows how India's agrarian rural society helps create practices and conceptual space for these citizens to be effective participants in India's great democratic exercises. Specifically, she shows how the villagers' creative practices around their kinship, farming and religion, while navigating encounters with local communist cadres, constitute a vital and continuing cultivation of those republican virtues of cooperation, civility, solidarity and vigilance which the visionary Ambedkar considered essential for the success of Indian democracy. At a time when so much of that constitutional vision is under threat, this book provides a crucial scholarly rebuttal to all, on Right or Left, who dismiss rural citizens' political capacities and democratic values. This book will appeal to anyone interested in India's political culture and future, its rural society, or the continuing relevance of political anthropology.

How do societies identify and promote merit? Enabling all people to fulfill their potential, and ensuring the selection of competent and capable leaders are central challenges for any society. These are not new concerns. Scholars, educators, and political and economic elites in China and India have been pondering them for centuries and continue to do so today, with enormously high stakes.In Making Meritocracy, Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi have gathered over a dozen experts from a range of intellectual perspectives--political science, history, philosophy, anthropology, economics, and applied mathematics--to discuss how the two most populous societies in the world have addressed the issue of building meritocracy historically, philosophically, and in practice. They focus on how contemporary policy makers, educators, and private-sector practitioners seek to promote it today. Importantly, they also discuss Singapore, which is home to large Chinese and Indian populations and the most successful meritocracy in recent times. Both China and India look to it for lessons. Though the past, present, and future of meritocracy building in China and India have distinctive local inflections, their attempts to enhance their power, influence, and social well-being by prioritizing merit-based advancement offers rich lessons both for one another and for the rest of the world--including rich countries like the United States, which are currently witnessing broad-based attacks on the very idea of meritocracy.

How do societies identify and promote merit? Enabling all people to fulfill their potential, and ensuring the selection of competent and capable leaders are central challenges for any society. These are not new concerns. Scholars, educators, and political and economic elites in China and India have been pondering them for centuries and continue to do so today, with enormously high stakes.In Making Meritocracy, Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi have gathered over a dozen experts from a range of intellectual perspectives--political science, history, philosophy, anthropology, economics, and applied mathematics--to discuss how the two most populous societies in the world have addressed the issue of building meritocracy historically, philosophically, and in practice. They focus on how contemporary policy makers, educators, and private-sector practitioners seek to promote it today. Importantly, they also discuss Singapore, which is home to large Chinese and Indian populations and the most successful meritocracy in recent times. Both China and India look to it for lessons. Though the past, present, and future of meritocracy building in China and India have distinctive local inflections, their attempts to enhance their power, influence, and social well-being by prioritizing merit-based advancement offers rich lessons both for one another and for the rest of the world--including rich countries like the United States, which are currently witnessing broad-based attacks on the very idea of meritocracy.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a global emergency, but its health, social, and economic effects were highly uneven. In India--one of the world's most unequal democracies--the pandemic and government responses unfolded across a hierarchical social landscape and uneven institutional terrain, producing starkly different experiences of risk, protection, and loss. In Unequal Contagion, Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner and Poulami Roychowdhury bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to analyze how long-standing patterns of inequality shaped pandemic experiences in India, how those inequalities were intensified by state responses, and how historically rooted forms of social mobilization and citizen-state relations helped, in some contexts, to mitigate their effects. Drawing on wide-ranging methods, from surveys to ethnography, chapter authors examine how centrally imposed lockdowns, disruptions to health systems, and uneven welfare provision interacted with class, caste, gender, religious, and regional inequalities. While responses varied substantially across states and localities, seemingly universal policy responses often amplified vulnerability--particularly among migrants, informal sector workers, women, and other marginalized groups--leaving many without access to livelihoods, healthcare, or protection from violence. Chapters also trace how access to healthcare, welfare, and relief depended not only on policy design but on everyday relationships between citizens, local officials, frontline workers, and civil society organizations. Grounded in India yet widely relevant, Unequal Contagion advances a relational and intersectional account of governance under stress. By linking sub-national variation in pandemic policy and welfare outcomes to historically embedded patterns of social mobilization and political engagement, the book offers insights on the formulation and implementation of emergency-related public policy in other unequal democracies, revealing how social inequality and uneven citizen-state relations shape who is protected and who is left vulnerable.