ABSTRACT

Mumbai / Bombay is a quintessential urban expression which represents the questions and puzzles related to Indian urbanity. This book traces the various ways through which majoritarianism and neoliberal capitalist accumulation has reorganised Bombay or Mumbai in India.

The book assesses Mumbai’s present trajectories and processes as being embedded in its recent past. It looks at these changes by exploring work and labour; health and education; spatial planning and infrastructural development; politics and identity; and shows how financialisation, land speculation, deregulation, and informality have impacted the city’s culture and everyday living. The contributors to this volume analyse the consequences of these changes for women and men across ages, as they live their material and cultural lives; evaluate the role of the changing nature of work, urban infrastructure, and planning; determine its outcome for public health and education; and take a measure of its manifestation in the field of arts and culture. The volume explores the processes that reorient these changes, the socio-spatial and political implications of these on the inhabitants of the city, and the resistance and response to marginalisation.

This interdisciplinary volume will interest students and researchers of economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, public policy, development studies, and urban studies. It will also be useful to urban practitioners, planners, bureaucrats, activists, and general readers.

chapter |23 pages

Introduction

Pathways towards Majoritarian Neoliberalism in Mumbai

part I|71 pages

Work and Labour

chapter 1|22 pages

Informality, missing markets, and political organisation

Case study of the Shiv Sena

chapter 3|17 pages

Living with Precariousness

Survival in Small Manufacturing Enterprises

chapter 4|12 pages

Neoliberalism and Majoritarian Politics

Hindutva and Restructuring the Meat Business

part II|76 pages

Infrastructure and Politics

chapter 6|19 pages

Legislating the Urban in Vasai-Virar

Planning (in) the Periphery

chapter 7|19 pages

Socio-spatial embedding of platform mobilities

A Study on Taxi Driving

chapter 8|19 pages

The Difficult Quest for Solidarity and Citizenship

Civility, Politics, and Neoliberalism

part III|72 pages

Well-being and Reproduction of Life

chapter 9|16 pages

Health and healthcare in the city

A Social History Perspective

chapter 10|18 pages

Right Place, Right Time

Ambulances, Injury, and Trauma in Motion

chapter 11|18 pages

The Good Muslim Student

Neoliberal Education and Islamic-English Schools