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Class Matters
Evidence From a Study of Citizenship in Bengaluru
Speakers
A large citizen survey was conducted in Bengaluru to better understand the everyday practices through which citizens effectively wield their rights. This is beyond conventional measures of voter turnout or generalisations about citizen participation in politics.
The key takeaway is that the poor access the state through political participation and the rich through their influence and connections. It was also found that unlike the conventional celebration of participation as a citizenship-deepening activity, a substantial part of participation is associated with forms of brokerage that compromise democratic citizenship.
This session will present the findings of the study and its implications for understanding the nature of urban democracy.
Speakers
Ashutosh Varshney
Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science, Brown University, where he also directs the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia. Previously, he taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His books include Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India, Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India, India in the Era of Economic Reforms and Collective Violence in Indonesia. His honors include the Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships and the Gregory Luebbert and Daniel Lerner Prizes. His academic articles have appeared in leading professional journals of political science and development. He is a columnist for The Indian Express, and editor-in-chief of the Modern South Asia Series, Oxford University Press, New York.
