ABSTRACT
Mirroring broader trends in international development over the past two decades, the current urban reforms line-up in India has seized upon the closely related discourses of citizen participation, accountability and transparency in urban governance. In recent years, however, critical scholarship has contended that participation as currently institutionalised through mainstream development can be seen as a ‘new tyranny’. A useful starting point in the theoretical analysis of the pathways of neoliberalism is the Marxian philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s notion of the ‘terrain of the conjunctural’. Parastatals are a peculiar feature of India’s colonial and post-colonial legacy. Stakeholdership, of course, comes with a price. Once the payment policy had been finalised in 2005 and the Government of Karnataka had announced the details in local newspapers, residents began to come forth with cash contributions, which they were required to pay in one of the two designated bank branches spread across the city.
