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Abstract:
Since the 1950s, public discourse in India has referred to black money: undeclared or illicit income, sometimes in foreign accounts. Black money - so as to circumvent state taxes and controls - pervaded ordinary exchange and political financing. Today, large purchases have white and black ratios; public figures vow to retrieve black money in Swiss accounts. Black money is, at once, a means to transact business, a barometer of value, an elusive specter, and a moral outrage. It suggests how money can be differentiated, converted, corrupted, and disguised. This chapter is based on an ethnographic study of a Mumbai neighborhood marked by migration and informality. It examines the generation of black money from the diversion of publicly subsidized goods, the community’s assessment of these practices, and possible conduits for such income. Black money, I suggest, can be understood as a moral critique of money’s spectral and pernicious character, as well as a productive hinge between transactional orders and an expression of relational ties.
