Study conducted at Baoli and Bijrol villages of Baghpat District in Uttar Pradesh, India.

This book discusses the forms and dynamics of political processes in rural India with a special emphasis on West Bengal, the nation's fourth-most populous state. West Bengal's political distinction stems from its long legacy of a Left-led coalition government for more than thirty years and its land reform initiatives. The book closely looks at how people from different castes, religions, and genders represent themselves in local governments, political parties, and in the social movements in West Bengal. At the same time it addresses some important questions: Is there any new pattern of politics emerging at the margins? How does this pattern of politics correspond with the current discourse of governance? Using ethnographic techniques, it claims to chart new territories by not only examining how rural people see the state, but also conceiving the context by comparing the available theoretical frameworks put forward to explain the political dynamics of rural India.

This important book presents systematic evidence of the incidence and extent of the practice of untouchability in contemporary India. It is based on the results of a very large survey covering 560 villages in eleven states. The field data is supplemented by information concerning associated forms of discrimination which Dalits face in their daily lives./-//-/This study finds that untouchability is practised in one form or another in almost 80 per cent of the villages surveyed. It is most prevalent in the religious and personal spheres. While the evidence presented in this book suggests that the more blatant and extreme forms of untouchability appear to have declined, discrimination is still practised in one form or another. The most widespread manifestations are in access to water and to cremation or burial grounds, as also when it comes to the major life cycle rituals. The survey also found that the notion of untouchability continues to pervade the public sphere, including in a host of state institutions and the interactions that occur within them.

This research has its ethnographic base in two adjacent villagers in the north-western part of Bangladesh. The villages Dhononjoypara and Gopalhati are examined in order to understand the changing leadership pattern in rural Bangladesh. The traditional leaders in a non-governmental organization is contrasted to the emerging leaders in newly-instituted government agencies. The study reveals a change in the institutions through which leaders can exert power due to government funded programmes and projects, but shows that the basic structure of the leadership remains unchanged. The educated descendants of the traditional leaders are the leaders in the new arena. The crucial importance of young sections of traditionally powerful families and the mechanisms that they have used for institutional change of power is highlighted in the book.

Study of a village in Bihar.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1965.

When members of groups that have long been marginalized finally gain access to political offices, it is expected that the social meaning of belonging to such a group will change and that these psychological changes will have far-reaching behavioral consequences. Supporters of political quotas granting such access often argue that they improve the nature of intergroup relations. However, these presumed psychological effects have remained surprisingly uncharted and untested. Do policies mandating the inclusion of excluded groups in political offices change the intergroup relations? If so, in what ways? By drawing on careful multi-method explorations of a single case - local-level electoral quotas for members of formerly 'untouchable' castes in India - this book provides nuanced, thorough and ultimately optimistic responses to these questions.