Cambridge South Asian Studies

To the modern world, the notions that freedom is an innate condition of human beings and that money possesses the power to bind people appear as natural facts. Bonded Histories traces the historical processes by which these notions became established as dominant discourses in India during colonial rule and continued into post-colonial India. Gyan Prakash locates the formulation of these discourses in the history of bonded labour in southern Bihar. He focuses on the emergence and subsequent transformation of the relationship of reciprocal power and dependence between landlords and labourers. The author explores the way in which these transformations were connected with broader shifts in the political economy of this part of the subcontinent; with the changing structures of agricultural production, land tenure and revenue demand; with local social hierarchies and the ideology of castes; and with Hindu cosmologies, spirit cults and their articulation in ritual practices.

This book examines an important period of transition in the political structure of South India. The first three-quarters of a century of British rule, down to the 1870s, had effectively torn apart and fragmented the political institutions of the South, and had left a highly parochial political society in which loyalties seldom extended beyond face-to-face relationships and power was extremely localized. This lack of significant supra-local political connections contributed to the Madras Presidency's reputation as the most 'benighted' of all Indian provinces.

Sri Lanka is one of the few new Commonwealth countries to have had a strong democratic tradition and a vibrant electoral life since Independence. In this book, Dilesh Jayanntha examines the basis for Sri Lankan electoral allegiance since 1947. He challenges the prevalent notion that caste is the basis for electoral allegiance and convincingly argues that the patron-client relationship is its primary determinant. Following an introduction outlining recent Sri Lankan political history, Dilesh Jayanntha then examines electoral allegiance in three contrasting constituencies which have a different history up until 1947. Yet, as the author demonstrates throughout, patronage networks determined electoral allegiance, and often, the patronage network was congruent with caste. Yet, as Jayanntha shows, where the patron-client tie cut across the caste tie it was the former which proved decisive in deciding electoral allegiance. This comparative analysis of electorates in Sri Lanka addresses issues that are relevant not only to South Asia but to the developing world in general.

Cambridge South Asian Studies

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43 results in Cambridge South Asian Studies

Bonded Histories

The Emergence of Provincial Politics

Electoral Allegiance in Sri Lanka

Cambridge South Asian Studies

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43 results in Cambridge South Asian Studies

Bonded Histories

The Emergence of Provincial Politics

Electoral Allegiance in Sri Lanka