4 - India’s Slum Leaders

Summary

Chapter 4 examines the book’s main protagonists – India’s slum leaders. I first draw on my ethnographic fieldwork and survey data to explore the strategies that residents use to claim public services. I find that India’s slum residents primarily orient their collective action toward the state, in the presence of informal slum leaders, to improve local conditions. The chapter then establishes the pervasiveness of slum leaders and their central place in local distributive politics. Next, it describes how slum leaders climb into their positions of informal authority, the material incentives that motivate them to make this gritty political ascent, and the diverse problem solving activities they perform for residents. I then argue that slum leaders must demonstrate efficacy to build a following – the base upon which they collect rents, attract patronage, and seek party promotion. The chapter subsequently describes the subset of slum leaders who have become party workers, absorbed into party organizations, and given positions within their hierarchies.