Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

What began as an academic exercise to study the correlation between caste politics and policy-making in India has culminated in an insightful yet accessible book that provides an understanding on why some Indian States have managed to alleviate poverty better than others.

Patrons of the Poor: Caste Politics and Policymaking in India (Oxford University Press) by Narayan Lakshman engages in a comparative analysis of the policy-making processes and political histories of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, case studies and interviews with top political leaders, bureaucrats and academics to argue that patterns of caste dominance combined with populist policies could explain whether States adopt pro-poor policies or not.

M.S. Swaminathan, Chairman of the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), launched the book under the joint auspices of the OUP and The Madras Book Club by handing over the first copies to N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, and K. Nagaraj, professor, the Asian College of Journalism.

Professor Swaminathan said the book was very relevant to the contemporary context in India, where pervasive poverty, inequities and mass deprivation coexisted with a rising growth rate.

Noting that the patronage approach to the poor persisted even today in the formulation of mass welfare programmes, Professor Swaminathan said the country's poor would remain so as long as they were seen as beneficiaries of schemes and not as citizens with rights. It is only recently that India was moving from a charity model of poverty alleviation to a rights-based approach, he said.

Mr. Nagaraj said one of the positive aspects about the book was its explicit rejection of the notion of poverty as a narrow and uni-dimensional issue. Terming some of its findings “fascinating,” he said the book was in the league of rare studies that situate politics in the matrix of caste-class relationship on the one hand and the political mobilisation of the poor on the other.

Moderating a discussion, Mr. Ram said the book was interesting and instructive and “connects with many areas we are concerned about and are trying to find answers to” in its systematic analysis of the complex phenomenon of political economy.

He said the book also represented a bold attempt to explore patterns of caste dominance and pro-poor policy-making, and provided powerful insights into a range of issues that are currently on the national agenda.

Y.K. Saxena, OUP representative, said the book embodied the OUP's values of excellence in research, scholarship and education.

Introducing the book, Mr. Lakshman, who is the Washington correspondent of The Hindu, said the one question that motivated the work was why the progress of poverty alleviation remained tardy in India even six decades after Independence.

In attempting to examine the reasons for the deepening of regional disparities at the State level and the factors that drive poverty alleviation, the book classified the States according to the regime type (representative of lower castes in Tamil Nadu and middle class-oriented in Karnataka) and mapped that to the respective policy agendas, Mr. Lakshman said.

S. Muthiah, historian and founder-member of the Madras Book Club, also participated.