ABSTRACT
One of the stylised facts about neo-liberalism is the progressive informalisation of the economy as formal industrial sector activities get informalised. Correspondingly, there is also a growth of self-employed service sector activities. This creates a demand for services for which formal markets do not exist. This gap is filled by social capital and rent-seeking activities in varied proportions. Control of these activities is critical to control of the flow of the economic value as it is produced and reproduced in the city’s political economy. Such control gives disproportionate access to some players, but also creates some trickle down, keeping the players at the lowest level actively interested. Understanding strategies of formal political organisations like the Shiv Sena requires placing them in this context. This is the key argument of this chapter.
