Introduction

This essay investigates the nature of urban governance in a rural market town in India in order to understand the process of what political scientists often call the crisis of governability. The choice of a rural market town in this study is deliberate, as existing studies on urban governance in India generally focus on large cities. According to the 1991 census, nearly 34.8 per cent of urban dwellers in India reside in towns comprising populations ranging between 5,000 and 99,000 people. Most of these populations live in dispersed rural market towns. Politically, these towns constitute the lowest nodal point of the hierarchy of diverse types of institutions of the Indian state. Even panchayat (rural government) offices are located in these small market towns. These institutions link rural market towns with larger urban centres such as district towns, regional capitals and finally the national capital. Economically, rural market towns act as emporia of indigenous export-import trade: exporting rural products into the vast national market grid comprising larger urban centres and importing finished industrial products for rural consumers. Thus such towns constitute the crucial interface between rural areas and large urban political, administrative and economic centres.

These political-economic links are also informed and influenced by social and cultural nexuses between urban and rural areas through rural market towns.