The wild East : criminal political economies in South Asia by Harris-White, Barbara; Michelutti, Lucia

Abstract

The Wild East bridges political economy and anthropology to examine a variety of illegal economic sectors and businesses such as red sanders, coal, fire, oil, sand, air spectrum, land, water, real estate, procurement and industrial labour. The 11 case studies, based across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, explore how state regulative law is often ignored and/or selectively manipulated. The emerging collective narrative shows the workings of regulated criminal economic systems where criminal formations, politicians, police, judges and bureaucrats are deeply intertwined.

By pioneering the field-study of the politicisation of economic crime, and disrupting the wider literature on South Asia’s informal economy, The Wild East aims to influence future research agendas through its case for the study of mafia-enterprises and their engagement with governance in South Asia and outside. Its empirical and theoretical contribution to debates about economic crimes in democratic regimes will be of critical value to researchers in Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Politics, Political Science and International Relations, Criminologists and Development Studies, as well as to those inside and outside academia interested in current affairs and the relationship between crime, politics and mafia enterprises.

1 online resource (1 volume) :
The Wild East bridges political economy and anthropology to examine a variety of il/legal economic sectors and businesses such as red sanders, coal, fire, oil, sand, air spectrum, land, water, real estate, procurement and industrial labour in South Asia
Includes bibliographical references and index
Print version record
Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; List of figures; List of tables; List of boxes; Notes on contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The criminal economics and politics of black coal in Jharkhand, 2014; 2. Jharia's century-old fire kept ablaze by crime and politics; 3. Sand and the politics of plunder in Tamil Nadu, India; 4. Himalayan 'hydro-criminality'? Dams, development and politics in Arunachal Pradesh, India; 5. Crime in the air: spectrum markets and the telecommunications sector in India; 6. The inter-state criminal life of sand and oil in North India
7. 'Red sanders mafia' in South India: violence, electoral democracy and labour8. The 'land and real estate mafia', West Bengal, East India; 9. Politics, capital and land grabs in Punjab, India; 10. The politics of contracting in provincial Bangladesh; 11. Putting out the Baldia factory fire: how the trial of Karachi's industrial capitalism did not happen; Epilogue South Asian criminal economies; Appendix Laws alleged or established to have been broken -- with main offenders; Glossary; Index