Patronage as Politics in South Asia

What does it mean when citizens worship their politicians, fall at their feet, or expect them to provide food, jobs, protection, even love? To many observers, these practices look like corruption, feudal leftovers, or failures of democracy. Yet across South Asia, they are central to how politics works.
Drawing on rich histories and ethnographies — from feasts in Rajasthan and Tamil “big-men” sponsoring schools and temples, to political fixers in Mumbai, Nepalese kings, and Bengali chiefs — this edited volume show that “patronage” is not a relic but a living moral idiom: a way of imagining power, responsibility, and social bonds. Far from undermining democracy, it often sustains it. Bringing together leading historians and anthropologists, the book shows how relations of generosity, loyalty, and care continue to structure political life, not only in South Asia but wherever democracy and hierarchy meet.
By thinking from and with South Asia, Patronage as Politics in South Asia makes a larger claim: that what many dismiss as “corruption” or “backwardness” is in fact a widespread political form, one that helps us understand the inner workings of democracy worldwide.

Published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press

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Marshall Sahlins

Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Chicago

It is remarkable how much the historical course in India is guided by institutional memories and their persisting structural paradigms. Testifying to this reproduction of the past in modern political garb, essay after essay of this fine work offers a nuanced, anthropological sense of how cultural order is revealed by historical change, even as the change manifests a historical order.

Jonathan Spencer

Regius Professor Emeritus of South Asian Language, Culture and Society at the University of Edinburgh

This brilliant volume will transform the study of South Asian politics. It combines a stellar assembly of researchers and imaginatively analysed case studies, and will provoke exciting debates about the past, present and future of democracy - both in South Asia itself, and far beyond.

Andrew J. Nathan

Foreign Affairs

Piliavsky's contributors, most of whom are anthropologists, offer fresh insights into the ways in which religious feasts, patronage handouts, and petty bureaucratic favors both support and undermine the state.

Shaikh Mujibur Rehman

The Hindu

This book is perhaps the most comprehensive investigation of the concept of patronage in the South Asian context. It lends enormous comparative insight to the intricate process of patronage and its implications … the book has the potential to open up new frontiers of research on patronage politics, and will be seen as a work of enduring importance for scholars of most major disciplines on South Asia.

Jon P. Mitchell

Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sussex

This excellent book demonstrates the importance of maintaining a focus on morality as it intersects with political and economic process … Drawing on rich empirical case material, it is a refreshing and revitalizing 'return' to the category of patronage that will be valuable to both regional specialists and those with a broader interest in global political processes.