ABSTRACT
The uneven and contradictory character of Mumbai’s urbanisation is a product of the state’s inability to generate an integrated approach to Bombay’s development challenges. This in turn generates the twin processes of majoritarianism and neoliberalism. We argue that majoritarianism lends a distinctive character to the design and implementation of neoliberal policies and programmes. It constricts minorities’ access to social infrastructure, even as neoliberalism undermines subaltern spaces. Mumbai has, consequently, witnessed the consolidation of a majoritarian linguistic identity, the informalisation of work and labour, and the emergence of public–private partnerships (PPPs). These processes shrink the public sphere and inhibit the space for democratic action. The conjuncture of neoliberalism and majoritarianism strengthens an illiberal, authoritarian, and upwardly mobile middle class while marginalising the populace. Multiple pathways cohere to produce this conjuncture, and the instruments of the state machinery, both, facilitate privatisation and deregulation, and create the conditions of coercion and fear among minorities. The increasing role of para-statal organisations buttresses the growing significance of real estate and the absorption of peripheries into an expanding metropolitan region. This volume demonstrates that these processes are produced on the back of a system of patronage and rent-seeking that was first institutionalised in colonial India.
