Politics, Landlords and Islam in Pakistan

Politics, Landlords and Islam in Pakistan explores the linkages between politics, religion, class, and caste in politics in rural Pakistan. It documents how landlords continue to wield arbitrary and despotic power over much of Pakistan’s rural population in the 21st century, and how participatory democracy has been subverted and has largely benefitted rural elites.

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This book offers unique insights into the changing nature of power and hierarchy in rural Pakistan from colonial times to present day. It shows how electoral politics and the erosion of traditional patron–client ties have not empowered the lower classes. The monograph highlights the persistence of debt-bondage, and illustrates how electoral politics provides assertive landlord politicians with opportunities to further consolidate their power and wealth at the expense of subordinate classes. It also critically examines the relationship between local forms of Islam and landed power.

The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers on Pakistan and South Asian politics, sociology and social anthropology, Islam, as also economics, development studies, and security studies.