Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at the democratisation of informal politics and how integration of poor citizens into the networks of informal politics leads them to not only more access to state resources but also creates a collective sense of dignity for the group as a whole.

Paper long abstract:

Periodic experience with elections has increased the extent of democratic participation of poor citizens in a country like India. Elections are often seen as the time when voters use the leverage of their vote to get better access to state resources. This happens through both formal and informal networks of brokers, fixers and mediators. These negotiations that happen within the context of state-society relations, between the state as a benefactor and poorer groups of citizens as the beneficiary constitutes what is known as clientelistic exchange politics or politics of patronage.

Drawing from extensive field work over the recently concluded assembly election in Bihar in 2015, this paper traces the functioning of informal politics through the tri-variate discourse of democratisation, development and dignity. I argue that the co-optation of hitherto poorest citizens into the formal state apparatus has increased their leverage in the realm of informal politics and has thus introduced new players as mediators, brokers and even sub-brokers in informal politics. While this has democratized the functioning of informal politics in the state, it has also lent substantial changes to their access to development(resources) and their idea of dignity. In a state like Bihar, where caste identities regulate and often dominate the structure of both formal and informal politics, such kind of bottom-up democratization of informal politics offers a fresh perspective to understand the process of democratization better and way its after effects on development and dignity, two popular discourses prevalent in the politics of South Asia.