CULTURE

Every human society produces elites. These elites design, dominate, and reproduce political, social, economic, ecological, and cultural institutions in that society. History is shaped either by these elites or by resistance against them. In South Asia—home to more than one-fourth of the world’s population—understanding power requires a comparative examination of elite formations across national borders. Despite sovereign separation, the ruling classes of India, Pakistan, Bang

Growing up as a Bahujan teenager in the 1990s, deprived,   crime-infested slums and public housing projects in Yerwada , Pune city, India, becoming ‘Dada’ (i.e, ‘Local street gang leader’) was my definition of success and respect. As a teenager, I was walking on a thin line between becoming what Indian laws called- ‘ Child in conflict with the law ’. Today, being a Public Policy scholar at the University of Chicago and living closer to the South Side of Chicago , I am empat

“You so-called experts with your fancy PhD degrees from the posh universities are part of the problem! I see many of you who visit my village every now and then for your 15-day ‘study tours’. But let me tell you one thing... while sitting behind your laptop screen, if you think you can understand my daily problems, then you are cheating yourself and also wasting my time. You can’t even differentiate between a rooster and a hen.” When 68-year-old Gundappa Kadagi, a rustic farm