Leela Fernandes is a political scientist who has written widely about inequality and change . She has published numerous books and articles on inequality and democratic politics in contemporary India and on contemporary feminism in the U.S and internationally. Her latest book is Governing Water in India: Inequality, Reform, and the State. She has taught for three decades at the University of Michigan as the Glenda Dickerson Collegiate Professor of Women?s Studies, Rutgers University, the University of Washington, and Oberlin College. At Michigan she served as the Director of the Center for South Asian Studies and was a senior fellow at the Michigan Society of Fellows and at the University of Washington she served as the Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.

Brilliantly argues how centralization tendencies occur in the liberal economy of India at both the national and sub-national levels.

Offers a rich description of the dynamics of state authority and a new space to understand centralization beyond the nature of Indian federalism.

Fernandes deftly reveals the complexity of postliberal governance in the context of water scarcity. The study sets a new standard for understanding how the bureaucratic state?s reaction to climate change creates and deepens existing inequalities.