Even as state governments invest in social welfare measures, they are forced into constant competition with one another to attract private investments, offering a good “investment climate” that includes access to a low cost workforce and a physical infrastructure geared towards capital accumulation. The need to provision welfare within an accumulation regime premised on global competition, fiscal austerity and marketisation, and a simultaneous need to reduce labour costs and to ensure social security, to exclude and include labour appears paradoxical.

The differential responses to the implementation of special economic zones across states offer an opening to understand how policy implementation gets shaped by the regional political economy.

Studies on Resident Welfare Associations draw attention to their predominantly middle class and exclusive character. Based on survey and ethnographic data on such associations across diverse neighbourhoods in Bangalore, this paper reveals the fractured, often contradictory, nature of claims made by different sections of middle class.