Leela Fernandes is Director and the Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, USA. She is the author of numerous books and essays. Her books on India include India's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform (2006), Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills (1997), and her forthcoming book, Governing Water in India: Urbanization, Inequality and the Liberalizing State (2022).