This article was downloaded by: [Eastern Michigan University]On: 11 October 2014, At: 17:05Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number:1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street,London W1T 3JH, UK

Commonwealth &Comparative PoliticsPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fccp20

Power and influence in India:bosses, lords and captainsAmita Shastri aa San Francisco State UniversityPublished online: 04 May 2012.

To cite this article: Amita Shastri (2012) Power and influence in India: bosses,lords and captains, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 50:2, 253-254, DOI:10.1080/14662043.2012.679791

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2012.679791

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of allthe information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on ourplatform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensorsmake no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy,completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views ofthe authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis.The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should beindependently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor andFrancis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings,demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever

or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, inrelation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private studypurposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution,reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of accessand use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Eas

tern

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

17:

05 1

1 O

ctob

er 2

014

BOOK REVIEWS

Power and influence in India: bosses, lords and captains, edited by PamelaPrice and Arild Engelsen Ruud, New Delhi, Routledge, 2010, xxxiv + 253 pp.,£70 (hardback), ISBN 9780415585958

Recent scholarship on India has focused attention on patterns and trends incoalition and party politics, political economy, and identity politics. It hasbeen less drawn to investigating the role of individuals in shaping and influen-cing these larger trends – a lack the book under review addresses. It returns thefocus to the role of leadership in politics, even while it distinguishes itself fromearlier studies that profiled post-independence leaders at the national level,specifically examining state and local leaders, along with their specificpredicaments and strategies to acquire and maintain influence and control insub-national arenas in the polity.

Rather than examine the exercise of leadership of individuals in their offi-cial or formal capacities, or in the conventional clientelistic mode of power andpatronage widely identified as operating in South Asia, the editors innovativelyseek to target attention to the creative efforts of leaders to join together theinstitutional structures and the changes taking place around them with personalcollective followings to establish new platforms from which to make bids forpower. They attempt to organise the discussion around concepts such as‘bosses’, ‘lords’ and ‘captains’ denoting different types of leaders in thepolitical world who are active in their particular ‘fields’ and ‘domains’, whileengaging in keen competition for material and symbolic resources.

This edited volume brings together thoughtful, well-researched pieces byboth junior and senior scholars drawn from the disciplines of anthropology,sociology, history and political science, along with an introduction by thetwo editors, and a foreword by the series editor, Mukulika Banerjee. The 10articles range in focus from identifying strategies deployed by individuals toestablish their leadership at the village level (Bjorn Alm in the context ofTamil Nadu, Banerjee on a communist party worker in Bengal) to analysesof state-level elite leaders devoting their energies in much larger, populous,and complex domains to gain public renown for themselves as dedicated toparticipatory/pro-poor or developmental politics (James Manor on DigvijaySingh in Madhya Pradesh, Pamela Price on Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra

ISSN 1466-2043 print/ISSN 1743-9094 online

http://www.tandfonline.com

Commonwealth & Comparative PoliticsVol. 50, No. 2, April 2012, 253–256

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Eas

tern

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

17:

05 1

1 O

ctob

er 2

014

Pradesh, respectively). A discussion on student mobilisation and youth politicsin Uttar Pradesh (Craig Jeffrey) is matched with one on student leaders inDhaka, Bangladesh (Arild Ruud – the only piece not on India). Other chaptersshed light on the new roles and styles of leadership being exhibited by risingcaste groups, such as the one on the takeover by Dalits as ‘new casteheadmen’ in south India (Hugo Gorringe) and a lively one on the ‘goonda’political style of the Yadavas in north India (Lucia Michelutti). These arebalanced by chapters that trace the continued appeal of populist strategies ofleadership (Andrew Wyatt on the new leader Vijayakanth in Tamil Nadu),and the paradoxical maintenance and survival by a leader of an ethic ofpersonal honesty in an increasingly corrupt system (Paul Brass’ detailedstudy of Charan Singh in Uttar Pradesh).

These studies highlight once again the importance of individual agency andachievement in the emergence of leaders in politics. More than that, they alsoprobe how the fortunes of individual leaders are interdependent with the insti-tutions with which they are associated. It constitutes a timely and valuableaddition to the literature on current South Asian politics in offering a compara-tive discussion of differing styles, strategies, and constraints of leadership inIndia. In doing so, it provides a solid basis for similar discussions on thetheme of leadership as practiced elsewhere in the sub-continent.

Amita ShastriSan Francisco State University

ashastri@sfsu.edu# 2012, Amita Shastri

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2012.679791

Fanonian practices in South Africa, by Nigel C. Gibson, Scottsville, Univer-sity of KwaZulu-Natal Press; New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, x + 312pp., £17.29 (paperback), ISBN 9781869141974

Gibson’s book is another serious piece of work on the state of post-apartheidSouth African society, which critics of the negotiated settlement that endedapartheid insist remains in the economic inequality that characterised theapartheid era. Gibson relies on Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial thoughts topresent his own assessment of post-apartheid South Africa. Gibson queries:How would Fanon, the quintessential revolutionary activist/theorist of anti-colonial liberation, ‘think and act in this period of retrogression’ (p. 4) in

254 Book Reviews

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Eas

tern

Mic

higa

n U

nive

rsity

] at

17:

05 1

1 O

ctob

er 2

014