Patronage as Politics in South Asia

Western policymakers political activists and academics alike see patronage as the chief enemy of open democratic societies. Patronage for them is a corrupting force a hallmark of failed and failing states and the obverse of everything that good modern governance ought to be. South Asia poses a frontal challenge for this consensus. Here the worlds most populous pluralist and animated democracy is also a hotbed of corruption with persistently startling levels of inequality. Patronage as Politics in South Asia confronts this paradox with calm erudition: sixteen essays by anthropologists historians and political scientists show from a wide range of cultural and historical angles that in South Asia patronage is no feudal residue or retrograde political pressure but a political form vital in its own right. This volume suggests that patronage is no foe to South Asias burgeoning democratic cultures but may in fact be their main driving force.