Poor people confront the state on an everyday basis all over the world. But how do they see the state, and how are these engagements conducted? This book considers the Indian case where people's accounts, in particular in the countryside, are shaped by a series of encounters that are staged at the local level, and which are also informed by ideas that are circulated by the government and the broader development community. Drawing extensively on fieldwork conducted in eastern India and their broad range of expertise, the authors review a series of key debates in development studies on participation, good governance, and the structuring of political society. They do so with particular reference to the Employment Assurance Scheme and primary education provision. Seeing the State engages with the work of James Scott, James Ferguson and Partha Chatterjee, and offers a new interpretation of the formation of citizenship in South Asia.

India no longer gets an easy ride as the world's largest democracy. Spectacular terrorist attacks on its Parliament and places of worship, communal riots of unprecedented ferocity, lingering separatist insurgency and violent caste conflict in impoverished regions have combined to cause a closer appraisal of India's capacity to sustain the rule of law. This book shows how governance is high when people follow the rules of transaction, derived from binding custom, legislation, administrative practices and the constitution. The key question that underpins this analysis is why do some people, sometimes, follow rules and not others? This study responds to this central question by looking at analytical narratives of political order in six Indian regional States, surveys of social and political attitudes and extended interviews with political leaders, administrators and police officers. It shows how, by drawing on the logic of human ingenuity, driven by self interest rather than mechanical adherence to tradition and ideology, these regional elites can design institutions and promote security, welfare and identity which enhance governance.

This volume examines the distinct structural characteristics of Indian politics and unearths significant sociopolitical and economic processes which are critical to the political articulation of governance in the country. It reflects on the foundational values of Indian polity, the emergence of the nation post-colonialism, the structural fluidity of federalism in India, and the changing nature of the planning process in the country. The book also studies the electoral processes, social movements, party system, local and state governance. Apart from analyzing corruption and public grievance systems, the volume also probes into significant issues in Indian politics. This book will be useful to the students, researchers and faculty working in the field of political science, public administration, political sociology, political economy and post-colonial contemporary Indian politics in particular. It will also be an invaluable and interesting reading for those interested in South Asian studies.

E-Governance has been one of the strategic sectors of reform in India since late 1990s under the rubric of ‘good governance’ agenda promoted by International Organizations. As India’s policy focus changed towards economic liberalization, deregulation and privatization proliferating domestic and foreign investment, ICT (Information Communication Technology) has been one of the leading areas for such heightened investment. Consequently, there has been a burgeoning interest in deploying ICT, in revamping the public service delivery and eventually the overall system of governance. This book analyses e-Governance in India and argues that such initiatives did not take place in isolation but followed in the footsteps of broader governance reform agenda that has already made considerable impact on the discourses and practices of governance in India. Employing interdisciplinary methodology by combining approaches from the Political Sciences, Sociology and Postcolonial/ transcultural studies, this book presents a qualitative account of the policies and practices of e-Governance reform in India along with a detailed case study of the Common Services Centres (CSCs) Scheme under the National e-Governance Plan of the Government of India and its resultant impact on the overall system of governance. It unfolds general theoretical issues in terms of the relationship between technology and governance and the entanglement of politics, technology and culture in the complex whole of governance. This furthers our understanding of the impact of the transnational governance reform agenda on post-colonial and post-communist societies of the developing world. Making an important and original contribution to the emerging field of e-Governance and to the existing body of research on governance in general, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Political Science, Political Sociology, South Asian Politics and Governance.

Governance discourse centers on an "ideal type" of modern statehood that exhibits full internal and external sovereignty and a legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Yet modern statehood is an anomaly, both historically and within the contemporary international system, while the condition of "limited statehood," wherein countries lack the capacity to implement central decisions and monopolize force, is the norm. Limited statehood, argue the authors in this provocative collection, is in fact a fundamental form of governance, immune to the forces of economic and political modernization. Challenging common assumptions about sovereign states and the evolution of modern statehood, particularly the dominant paradigms supported by international relations theorists, development agencies, and international organizations, this volume explores strategies for effective and legitimate governance within a framework of weak and ineffective state institutions. Approaching the problem from the perspectives of political science, history, and law, contributors explore the factors that contribute to successful governance under conditions of limited statehood. These include the involvement of nonstate actors and nonhierarchical modes of political influence. Empirical chapters analyze security governance by nonstate actors, the contribution of public-private partnerships to promote the United Nations Millennium Goals, the role of business in environmental governance, and the problems of Western state-building efforts, among other issues. Recognizing these forms of governance as legitimate, the contributors clarify the complexities of a system the developed world must negotiate in the coming century.

From the early days of colonial rule in India, the British established a two-tier system of legal administration. Matters deemed secular were subject to British legal norms, while suits relating to the family were adjudicated according to Hindu or Muslim law, known as personal law. This important new study analyses the system of personal law in colonial India through a re-examination of women's rights. Focusing on Hindu law in western India, it challenges existing scholarship, showing how - far from being a system based on traditional values - Hindu law was developed around ideas of liberalism, and that this framework encouraged questions about equality, women's rights, the significance of bodily difference, and more broadly the relationship between state and society. Rich in archival sources, wide-ranging and theoretically informed, this book illuminates how personal law came to function as an organising principle of colonial governance and of nationalist political imaginations.

In Sexual States Jyoti Puri tracks the efforts to decriminalize homosexuality in India to show how the regulation of sexuality is fundamentally tied to the creation and enduring existence of the state. Since 2001 activists have attempted to rewrite Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which in addition to outlawing homosexual behavior is often used to prosecute a range of activities and groups that are considered perverse. Having interviewed activists and NGO workers throughout five metropolitan centers, investigated crime statistics and case law, visited various state institutions, and met with the police, Puri found that Section 377 is but one element of how homosexuality is regulated in India. This statute works alongside the large and complex system of laws, practices, policies, and discourses intended to mitigate sexuality's threat to the social order while upholding the state as inevitable, legitimate, and indispensable. By highlighting the various means through which the regulation of sexuality constitutes India's heterogeneous and fragmented "sexual state," Puri provides a conceptual framework to understand the links between sexuality and the state more broadly.