Through eleven case studies conducted across India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, The Wild East examines a variety of economic sectors and business enterprises that regularly flout the law, such as coal, oil, real estate, and industrial labor. Bridging anthropology and political economy, the case studies explore how state regulative law is ignored or selectively manipulated and reveal the workings of regulated criminal economic systems in which politicians, police, judges, and bureaucrats are closely intertwined. Disrupting the existing literature on South Asia’s informal economy, The Wild East also suggests avenues for future research that will be of critical value to students and scholars of economics, anthropology, sociology, criminology, comparative politics, political science, and international relations.
380 pages | 1 halftone | 6.14 x 9.21 | © 2019
Free digital open access editions are available to download from UCL Press.
Sociology: General Sociology
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction
Barbara Harriss-White and Lucia Michelutti
1. The criminal economics and politics of black coal in Jharkhand, 2014
Nigel Singh and Barbara Harriss-White
2. Jharia’s century-old fire kept ablaze by crime and politics
Smita Gupta
3. Sand and the Politics of Plunder in Tamil Nadu, India
J. Jeyaranjan
4. Himalayan Hydro-criminality: Dams, Development and Politics in Arunachal Pradesh, India
Deepak K Mishra
5. Crime in the Air: Spectrum Markets and the Telecommunications Sector in India
Jai Bhatia
6. The inter-State criminal life of sand and oil in North India, western Uttar Pradesh
Lucia Michelutti
7. Red sanders mafia’ in South India Violence, electoral democracy and labour
David Picherit
8. ‘The Land and Real Estate Mafia’, East India, West Bengal
Tone K. Sissener
9. Politics, Capital, and Land Grabs in Punjab, India
Nicolas Martin
10. The Politics of Contracting inProvincial Bangladesh
Arild Engelsen Ruud
11. Putting Out the Baldia Factory Fire: How the Trial of Karachi’s Industrial Capitalism Did Not Happen
Laurent Gayer
Barbara Harriss-White and Lucia Michelutti
1. The criminal economics and politics of black coal in Jharkhand, 2014
Nigel Singh and Barbara Harriss-White
2. Jharia’s century-old fire kept ablaze by crime and politics
Smita Gupta
3. Sand and the Politics of Plunder in Tamil Nadu, India
J. Jeyaranjan
4. Himalayan Hydro-criminality: Dams, Development and Politics in Arunachal Pradesh, India
Deepak K Mishra
5. Crime in the Air: Spectrum Markets and the Telecommunications Sector in India
Jai Bhatia
6. The inter-State criminal life of sand and oil in North India, western Uttar Pradesh
Lucia Michelutti
7. Red sanders mafia’ in South India Violence, electoral democracy and labour
David Picherit
8. ‘The Land and Real Estate Mafia’, East India, West Bengal
Tone K. Sissener
9. Politics, Capital, and Land Grabs in Punjab, India
Nicolas Martin
10. The Politics of Contracting inProvincial Bangladesh
Arild Engelsen Ruud
11. Putting Out the Baldia Factory Fire: How the Trial of Karachi’s Industrial Capitalism Did Not Happen
Laurent Gayer