This book offers unique insights into the changing nature of power and hierarchy in rural Pakistan from colonial times to present day. It shows how electoral politics and the erosion of traditional patron–client ties have not empowered the lower classes. The monograph highlights the persistence of debt-bondage, and illustrates how electoral politics provides assertive landlord politicians with opportunities to further consolidate their power and wealth at the expense of subordinate classes. It also critically examines the relationship between local forms of Islam and landed power.

The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers on Pakistan and South Asian politics, sociology and social anthropology, Islam, as also economics, development studies, and security studies.