Jun 22 2024 to Jun 22 2024 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

In this event, Professor Malini Ranganathan will discuss her new book, Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City (Yoda, 2024). Through ethnographic fieldwork, the book studies what its co-authors call “corruption plots” from the streets of Bengaluru and Mumbai, where black money skyscrapers, land grabs, encroachment on wetlands, and slum evictions invoke outrage at deepening economic polarization and the impunity with which the real estate lobby operates. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom, the book argues that corruption is a story-telling practice charged with ethical meaning, one that does not simply condemn illegality or bribery but is also used to call attention to the legal—and legalized—abuses of power by the state, political class, and elites. At the same time, the book warns that anger by various publics about corruption is uneven, inflected by caste, class, and ethno-religious bias, especially in the context of right-wing nationalism and crony capitalism in India. Why do certain things get called “corruption” while others don’t—and why do corruption charges suddenly erupt into public discourse, while at other times remain muted in the background? Drawing on ethnography in two Indian cities undertaken in 2018, as well as a cross-section of films and novels on the global city (in India and beyond), this book attends to the political slipperiness, sensationalism, and opportunism associated with corruption talk, wherein fantastical scams about the city can often appear more fictional than factual. Ultimately, in deriving a humanistic and multifaceted theory of corruption—sorely lacking in one-dimensional policy pronouncements—the book contends that across the world’s ostensible democracies, we need a more grounded analysis of how anti-corruption has been selectively championed and challenged, and with what effects, by both liberal and rightwing regimes.

The author will briefly discuss the book, followed by a conversation with Professor Sushmita Pati and an audience Q&A.