The ethics of staying : social movements and land rights politics in Pakistan /

This academic book focuses on the creation in 2000 of a Punjab tenant farmers association movement known as the Anjuman Mazarin Punjab (AMP) and its subsequent struggles to resist the Pakistan state policy to monetize land leases on state farms owned by the military in the Punjab. The proposed replacement of the traditional practice of rent-in-kind sharecropping with a cash-based land lease program was ostensibly designed to improve the life of the tenant farmers. Instead the new policy resulted in the establishment of the largest land rights movements in post-colonial Punjab.The author started his ethno-historical research with a brief visit to Punjab in 2004, which was then followed by extensive fieldwork in the years 2007 and 2008. The book tracks the trajectory of the movement over the ensuing decade as it evolved in the context of the changing political landscape of Pakistan, highlighting the legacy of British colonial rule on the geopolitical and environmental transformation of the Indus Plain and its enduring impact on the relationship between farmer tenants and those who hold power over them. Rizvi's research and analysis provide insight into the complex nature of a grassroots movements. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students through faculty. --Amal Rassam, emerita, CUNY Queens College