https://doi.org/10.1177/0486613419884150 Review of Radical Political Economics 1–22 © 2020 Union for Radical Political Economics Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0486613419884150 rrpe.sagepub.com Precarious and Informal Work Precarity and Development: Production and Labor Processes in the Informal Economy in India Snehashish Bhattacharya 1 and Surbhi Kesar 2,3 Abstract We take off from the recent critiques of precarity as an emerging global phenomenon to argue that the processes of precarity in the Global North and the Global South need to be analytically distinguished to bring forth their specificities. We further argue that such an analysis challenges the idea of development as transition, as is prevalent in much of the literature. We focus on the informal economy in India to show that the notion of precarity conceptually involves three distinct aspects of production and labor processes—“non-capitalist” petty commodity production (PCP), subcontracted PCP, and informal wage-labor. We argue that these dimensions have their own particularities that have distinct implications for the process of capitalist development in India. We contend that reproduction of these informal spaces during a period of high economic growth unsettles the imaginary of development as transition. JEL classifications: O17, J46, B51 Keywords precarity, informal economy, production and labor processes, non-capitalist, transition 1. Introduction Over the past couple of decades, the issue of precarity in production and labor processes has attracted widespread attention, particularly through the work of Guy Standing (2011) and the decent work agenda of the International Labour Organization (ILO 1999; Fields 2003). In this literature, precarity is mainly understood in terms of newly emerging forms of non-standard, insecure, and precarious work relations and labor processes that have been brought forth through the process of globalization, associated structural shifts, and reforms to promote flexibility in labor markets. Standing specifically argues that these emergent work relations have given rise to a “new” class of workers, the “precariat,” lacking the “usual” forms of labor security and surviv- ing on the “dregs of the society” (Standing 2011). 884150RRP XX X 10.1177/0486613419884150Review of Radical Political EconomicsBhattacharya and Kesar research-article 2020 1 Faculty of Economics, South Asian University, New Delhi, India 2 Faculty of Economics, South Asian University, New Delhi, India 3 Centre for Sustainable Employment, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, India Date received: May 30, 2019 Date accepted: September 24, 2019 Corresponding Author: Surbhi Kesar, Faculty of Economics, South Asian University, Akbar Bhawan, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi, 110021, India. Email: kesar.surbhi.05@gmail.com