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In this talk, Sudhir Chella Rajan builds on a central theme in his book, A Social Theory of Corruption: Notes from the Indian Subcontinent, to argue that the politics of culture might be more appropriately characterized as grand corruption, because of the way lifestyles get molded into shapes that serve the long-term interests of elites. These structural formations are produced through the interlocking forces of elite networks that rely on territorial strategies to consolidate rent production. Corruption is a process of societal decay or degeneration, where the promise of social order is deployed duplicitously and relentlessly to justify the betrayal of moral order. Rajan uses vignettes from South Asia and around the world to make his case.

Please register for the event here.

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Sudhir Chella Rajan is Professor and former Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras, in Chennai, India. His research interests are at the interface of political theory and the environment, where he has carried out studies in the domains of perirubanization and automobility, climate change, and mineral extraction. 

Discussant: Parthapratim Shil, Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University

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If you need a disability-related accommodation, please contact southasiainfo@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by March 24th.