| 000 -LEADER |
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| fixed length control field |
02530nam a22002417a 4500 |
| 008 - FIXED-LENGTH DATA ELEMENTS--GENERAL INFORMATION |
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| fixed length control field |
230204b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d |
| 020 ## - INTERNATIONAL STANDARD BOOK NUMBER |
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| International Standard Book Number |
9789390679669 |
| 082 ## - DEWEY DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION NUMBER |
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| Classification number |
320.80954123 |
| Item number |
SHA |
| 100 ## - MAIN ENTRY--PERSONAL NAME |
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| Personal name |
Sharan, M.R. |
| 245 ## - TITLE STATEMENT |
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| Title |
Last among equals : power, caste and politics in Bihar's villages |
| 250 ## - EDITION STATEMENT |
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| Edition statement |
1st ed. |
| 260 ## - PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC. (IMPRINT) |
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| Place of publication, distribution, etc |
. |
| Name of publisher, distributor, etc |
Context |
| Date of publication, distribution, etc |
2021 |
| 300 ## - PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION |
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| Extent |
235p. |
| 365 ## - TRADE PRICE |
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| Price amount |
Rs.599 |
| 520 ## - SUMMARY, ETC. |
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| Summary, etc |
Sanjay Sahni was living an ‘araam zindagi’ in Delhi, working as an electrician, until a chance encounter with a computer sent him hurtling into the labyrinth that is the NREGA—one of the world’s largest rural poverty alleviation programmes—and the corruption within. It led him back to his village, where eventually, he and his comrades (primarily women from the Dalit and most backward castes) formed the anti-corruption group Manrega Watch. Their tale is one strand of village politics, a story of resilience among citizens, those outside the system.But what of the ‘insiders’? The complex local-state unit of the village has at the top a mukhiya, who, like the one in Sanjay’s village, wields great power, even to do harm. Ward members—closest to their constituents and the most socially representative group in the panchayati raj system—are at the bottom of this structure.Development economist M.R. Sharan brings these two interweaving strands of insiders and outsiders together to tell a tale of hope: that those on the margins can challenge entrenched hierarchies. Through government action—reservation, decentralisation, transparency measures—and through citizenly engagement, social movements and elections, change is possible, if not necessarily easy. Take the resourceful ward member, Kamal Manjhi, who repurposed the grievance redressal system to complain against the state: this was essentially a member of the local state, using a state mechanism to arm-twist another part of the state to do its job.Last Among Equals eschews the usual sweeping narratives of national and state politics, reaching instead for the ‘swirling, vivid sub-narratives that escape easy categorisations’, the darkness of the material leavened with deep empathy. The result is a captivating, often searing narrative of how lives are lived in the villages of Bihar—and indeed in much of India. |
| 546 ## - LANGUAGE NOTE |
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| Language note |
English |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name as entry element |
Manpower policy, Rural |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name as entry element |
Power (Social sciences) |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name as entry element |
Villages |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name as entry element |
India--Bihar |
| 650 ## - SUBJECT ADDED ENTRY--TOPICAL TERM |
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| Topical term or geographic name as entry element |
Caste--Political aspects |
| 942 ## - ADDED ENTRY ELEMENTS (KOHA) |
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| Item type |
Books |
