Overview

India remains a country mired in poverty, with two-thirds of its 1.2 billion people living on little more than a few dollars day. Just as telling, the country's informal working population numbers nearly 500 million, or approximately 80 percent of the entire labor force. Despite these figures and the related structural disadvantages that imperil the lives of so many, the Indian elite hold fast to the idea that the poor need only work harder and show some discipline and they, too, can become rich. The results of this ambitious ten-year ethnography at exclusive golf clubs in Bangalore shatter such self-serving illusions. In Narrow Fairways, Patrick Inglis combines participant observation, interviews, and archival research to show how social mobility among the poor lower-caste golf caddies who carry the golf sets of wealthy upper-caste members at these clubs is ultimately constrained and narrowed. The book highlights how elites secure and extend class and caste privileges, while also delivering a necessary rebuke to India's present development strategy, which pays far too little attention to promoting quality health care, education, and other basic social services that would deliver real opportunities to the poor.

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9780190664770

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Reviews

Inglis's book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the emergent Indian middle class. With great sensitivity, Inglis shows both how economic liberalization in recent decades has created aspirations of upward mobility, and how the actual spaces for that mobility are closely guarded by the Indian elites. The book demonstrates the possibility of combining analytical acuity with deep compassion. It is a significant achievement. -Vivek Chibber, New York University In this careful and heartfelt account of golf caddies and club members in India's Silicon Valley, Patrick Inglis gives us a rare inside look at the intimate politics of social mobility and class reproduction in millennial India. Inglis reminds us, with fresh insight, that aspiration and mobility are a matter of life and death. Among the rich and the poor, we see how neoliberal logics have eroded away basic human empathy in favor of a status quo that rewards the wealthy indiscriminately. A compelling, page-turning, important book. -Smitha Radhakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociology, Wellesley College A beautifully written glimpse into the intimate and brutal practices of social inequality reproduction, played out inside-and in the back alleys of-India's most elite golf clubs. -Michael Goldman, University of Minnesota, and author of Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization

Inglis's book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the emergent Indian middle class. With great sensitivity, Inglis shows both how economic liberalization in recent decades has created aspirations of upward mobility, and how the actual spaces for that mobility are closely guarded by the Indian elites. The book demonstrates the possibility of combining analytical acuity with deep compassion. It is a significant achievement. -Vivek Chibber, New York University In this careful and heartfelt account of golf caddies and club members in India's Silicon Valley, Patrick Inglis gives us a rare inside look at the intimate politics of social mobility and class reproduction in millennial India. Inglis reminds us, with fresh insight, that aspiration and mobility are a matter of life and death. Among the rich and the poor, we see how neoliberal logics have eroded away basic human empathy in favor of a status quo that rewards the wealthy indiscriminately. A compelling, page-turning, important book. -Smitha Radhakrishnan, Associate Professor of Sociology, Wellesley College A beautifully written glimpse into the intimate and brutal practices of social inequality reproduction, played out inside-and in the back alleys of-India's most elite golf clubs. -Michael Goldman, University of Minnesota, and author of Imperial Nature: The World Bank and Struggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization

Author Information

Patrick Inglis is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Grinnell College. He teaches and writes on matters of global development, labor, and inequality.

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