ABSTRACT
Before concentrating in later chapters on this book’s core matter of Mumbai’s administration, conditions of its slum people and local politics, this chapter sets the broad overall context. First I discuss the overall Indian situation and trends of urban poverty and exclusion, along with national governance changes, all of which strongly impact the city. I survey current trends and complications in Indian democracy and elections. I then elaborate my analytical frame, which will help focus and guide this study. As noted already, it centres on the key relationship of patronage, which seemingly simple relation became the cornerstone of more ambitious perspectives. The mediated state concept highlights the central role of brokers in the individualised allocation of state benefi ts; patronage democracy adds politics by stressing that state benefi ts are also exchanged for votes. With a view to understand the increasing role of the private sector in politics and elections, I go way back to Scott (1969) who conceptualised the ‘machine politics model’. A brief review of Indian democracy shifts closes the chapter, where I consider the growing political clout of the upcoming middle classes and the emergence of ‘new politics’, which seem mostly detrimental for poor people whose key asset is – or was – their vote.
