The relationship between the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and its servants fundamentally changed with its decline (1740-1796). The changing circumstances of the eighteenth century demanded too... Show moreThe relationship between the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and its servants fundamentally changed with its decline (1740-1796). The changing circumstances of the eighteenth century demanded too much of the VOC. The solution to these new demands was not sought in new capitalization from Europe, but in a combination of cutbacks on activities in Asia and augmented usage of servants’ fortunes. The domains the VOC retreated from were filled by privileges to the servants. As the VOC depended more on its servants during its decline, the balance of power between them shifted in favour of the servants. This change in balance demanded more of the servants, forcing them to organize themselves differently to meet the new challenges. In the end, this change of perspective makes the development much more comparable to the changes the English East India Company went through, and provides a new perspective on changes in the position of the EIC-servants in the period around Plassey (1757). Show less
Under the impetus of “reservations” -an elaborate government policy of affirmative action- over the past six decades hundreds of thousands of Indian untouchables -individuals ranked extremely low... Show moreUnder the impetus of “reservations” -an elaborate government policy of affirmative action- over the past six decades hundreds of thousands of Indian untouchables -individuals ranked extremely low in the Hindu caste hierarchy- have managed to secure highly valued civil service jobs. The question explored in this study is why these untouchable bureaucrats are not much inclined -as those who introduced reservations had hoped and anticipated they would- to use their new-found positions of power and influence to extend special help to untouchable clients outside bureaucracy. In an effort to account for this puzzling phenomenon of unrepresentative bureaucracy the author conducted prolonged ethnographic fieldwork in a dust-level rural development bureaucracy in north India. He introduces the reader to a complex and vibrant local universe in which an array of actors, factors and considerations conspire to simultaneously limit untouchable bureaucrats’ opportunities and motives for acting as active representatives of untouchable interests and constrain untouchable clients’ possibilities for claiming special treatment. Affirmative action in civil service recruitment, it is concluded, seems to be of doubtful use as a social engineering tool, at least in the case of stigmatized ethnic minority groups in patronage democracies. Show less
