Author: C J Fuller
Veronique Benei/Eminent Contributors
: C J Fuller/Veronique Benei
Publisher: Social Science Press
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 221
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9788187358572
Description
This book focuses on how the large, amorphous and impersonal Indian state affects the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. All the eight essays in this work are original contributions and are based on empirical research.
The book argues that state and society merge in the day-to-day lives of most Indians, and the boundary between them is blurred and negotiable according to social context and position. The contributors adopt the position, contrary to that of many others, that most Indian are able comprehend and use the institutions of the state.
This is also the first book to present such a range of anthropological and sociological material on the Indian State, covering Delhi and Uttar Prudish in the north, Maharashtra in the west, West Bengal in the east, and Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the south. The central theme of the book, the everyday dimension of the state and society's relation to it in modern India, is explored in the first essay, an important contribution on the subject.
The essays dwell on a variety of issues such as riot management, the Emergency, corruption and cut across academic disciplines. Written lucidly, on themes, which preoccupy most people, these essays lend clarity and cogency to the confusion of everyday life, contributing to a better understanding of the Indian social and political environment.
The book will be of great interest to the specialist, but special care has been taken to make it accessible to the non-specialist reader as well, who will find these essays of immense value.
THE EDITORS:
C J FULLER is Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of The Camphor flame: popular Hinduism and society in India and Servants of the goddess: the priests of a south Indian temple.
VERONIQUE BENEI is a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Research Fellow in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the author of La dot en inde: un fleau social? Socio-anthroplogie due marriage au Maharashtra and co-editor of Intellectuels en diaspora et theories nomads.