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Throughout the 20th century, electricity was considered to be the primary vehicle of modernity, as well as its quintessential symbol. In India, electrification was central to how early nationalists and planners conceptualized Indian development, and huge sums were spent on the project from then until now. Yet despite all this, sixty-five years after independence nearly 400 million Indians have no access to electricity. Electrifying India explores the political and historical puzzle of uneven development in India's vital electricity sector. In some states, nearly all citizens have access to electricity, while in others fewer than half of households have reliable electricity. To help explain t...
Wilkinson.--William Crawley "Asian Affairs"
Electricity is critical to enabling India’s economic growth and providing a better future for its citizens. In spite of several decades of reform, the Indian electricity sector is unable to provide high-quality and affordable electricity for all, and grapples with the challenge of poor financial and operational performance. To understand why, Mapping Power provides the most comprehensive analysis of the political economy of electricity in India’s states. With chapters on fifteen states by scholars of state politics and electricity, this volume maps the political and economic forces that constrain and shape decisions in electricity distribution. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it conclud...
Offers a groundbreaking analysis of the distinctive substantive, theoretical and methodological contributions of subnational research in the field of comparative politics.
This innovative and timely reassessment of political theology opens new lines of critical investigation into the intersections of religion and politics in contemporary Asia. Moving beyond a focus on the (post-) Christian West, this volume locates ‘development’ – conceptualised as a set of modern, transnational networks of ideas and practices of improvement that connect geographically disparate locations – as a vital focal point for critical investigations into Asian political theologies. Investigating the sacred dimensions of power through concepts of transcendence, sacrifice, victimhood, aspiration, and salvation, this collection demonstrates how European and Asian modernities a...
Cosmopolitan Elites narrates the birth, everyday life, and fracturing of a Western-dominated global order from its margins. It offers a critical sociological examination of the elite Indian Foreign Service and its members, many of whom were present at the founding of this order. Kira Huju explores how these diplomats set out to remake the service in the name of a radically anti-colonial global subaltern, but often ended up seeking status within its hierarchies through social mimicry of its most powerful actors. This is a book about the struggles of belonging: it revisits what it takes to be a recognized member of international society and asks what the experience of historically marginalized...
As India switches away from a coal-based to a more sustainable energy use pattern, which pathway will it adopt? What is the nature of challenges that it will face, and who will be affected? Who will gain? This volume offers insights into the steps and challenges involved in this transition and addresses some urgent questions about the possible pathways for India’s renewable energy generation. Including contributions from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, it draws on different disciplines, ranging from science and technology to economics and sociology, and situates the issue of low carbon transition within an interdisciplinary framework. India has committed to gradual decarbonis...
A critical reading of the unstable structures that organize biological and social life This timely and radically interdisciplinary volume uncovers the aesthetics and politics of infrastructure. From roads and bridges to harbors and canals, infrastructure is conventionally understood as the public works that allow for the circulation of capital. Yet this naturalized concept of infrastructure, driven by capital’s restless expansion, is haunted by imperial tendencies to occupy territory, extract resources, and organize life. Infrastructure thus undergirds the living nexus of modernity in an ongoing project of racialization, affective embodiment, and environmental praxis. Rather than merely ma...
An authoritative collection on the history of Hindu religious practices. Hindu Practice considers traditions of asceticism, yoga, and devotion, including dance and music, developed in Hinduism over long periods of time.
What constitutes a sovereign state in the international legal sphere? This question has been central to international law for centuries. Sovereignty, International Law, and the Princely States of Colonial South Asia provides a compelling exploration of the history of sovereignty through an analysis of the jurisdictional politics involving a specific set of historical legal entities. Governed by local rulers, the princely states of colonial South Asia were subject to British paramountcy whilst remaining legally distinct from directly ruled British India. Their legal status and the extent of their rights remained the subject of feverish debates through the entirety of British colonial rule. Th...