Informal Labour in Urban India

Tom Barnes is a postdoctoral research fellow in religion and society at the Australian Catholic University. His research background is in the comparative political economy of development, informal employment and labour movements. He is currently researching labour in the automotive industry in Australia and the United States, as well as India, Indonesia and China.

• 1. India’s informal economy 2. Mapping informal labour in India 3. Mumbai 4. Bangalore 5. New Delhi 6. Informal labour and resistance

"Tom Barnes has written a fascinating study of the unevenness of India’s renowned industrial transformation. He shows that the growth process has been pertly driven by the interests of global capital, and that it depends crucially on informal labour drawn from the masses of people trying to scrape a living. The result is geographically unbalanced and class biased. Barnes combines empirical evidence, direct observation and careful political economic judgment to produce a cogent and insightful analysis. It is a thoroughly engaging book which changes the way in which Indian economic development should be viewed."Frank Stilwell, University of Sydney, Australia"Thomas Barnes has written a highly stimulating book on informal labour and capitalist development in urban India today. It provides new insights into Indian informalisation processes through a wide-ranging analysis of informal labour and uneven and combined development. Its focus on the growth of informalised wage labour, as opposed to self-employment, will provoke debate. Anyone concerned with informal work, wage labour and the underlying global and regional processes in India will appreciate this book."Jens Lerche, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK"The large informal economy of India, which has grown even in formal sector during the period of liberalization, has been a complex phenomenon for the mainstream economic theories. This book, which covers the three large and growing though different kinds of urban regions in the country, offers new insights on this issue. While depicting the analysis on a longer term canvas, this work is grounded in both the existing social structure as well as the flexible global labour system. The book thus signifies an important endeavour towards understanding the functioning of contemporary labour processes in India."Alakh N. Sharma, Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, India