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.

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

Reviews
Narrow Fairways: Getting By & Falling Behind in the New India gives readers important insight into the nature of social mobility in India today. Elaborate notes are scholarly and helpful in understanding the context and the author's arguments. The language is lucid and the book is gripping. It will be of interest to students and scholars of social sciences, and general readers who are interested in understanding social mobility in contemporary India. * Ganeshdatta Poddar, Pacific Affair *
As a well -- crafted text, this book draws us into the lives of the caddies and their interactions with the elite both on and off the golf course. * Divya Vaid, American Journal of Sociology *
Narrow Fairways: Getting By & Falling Behind in the New India is an invaluable treatise on the dynamics of social mobility among the lower middle classes in a globalizing India. * Ganeshdtta Poddar, Pacific Affairs Volume 97 *



Book Information
ISBN 9780190664770
Author Patrick Inglis
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 23mm