ABSTRACT
Hand in hand with economic anxiety has been the political anxiety also faced by Mumbai’s citizens. India’s key integrative political institution since 1947, the Congress party, has gone through a profound organizational decay, with no centrist parties taking its place. Incidents like the 1993 Mumbai riots, which extended a heavy toll on human life and property, forced an examination of the political system that had framed such violence. In Maharashtra, the Congress Party has governed since the formation of the unilingual state of Maharashtra in 1960, except for a brief hiatus when the Janata Party stood in government from 1978 to 1980. The riots showed how ordinary citizens and local-level politicians lost faith in the Indian political system. In Maharashtra the Congress Party, which dominated the political scene since India’s Independence, became weakened by internal factionalism.
