1 Development practice in post-liberalization India: State marketization, decentralization and informalization in Gujarat Dolly Daftary Pre-print version of article published in the European Journal of Development Research. The publisher-authenticated version: Daftary, D. (2015). "Development in Post-liberalization India: Marketization, Decentralization and Informalization in Gujarat." European Journal of Development Research.10.1057/ejdr.2015.42" is available at: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ejdr201542a.html Abstract: This article discusses the transformation of development practice following market reforms in developing countries through a study in Gujarat, western India. It draws upon ethnographic fieldwork on market-driven development in India’s flagship state of neoliberal reforms, and the strategy’s delivery of state-sponsored microcredit. The article discusses the rise of profit-maximizing priorities in government-owned rural banks, the state’s deployment of contracting and subcontracting to implement development policy, and the devolution of micro- level policy implementation to elected local bodies, which led to the responsibility for local development being tacitly shifted to an ungoverned space in the locality. The article discusses how these changes reveal marketization, decentralization and informalization to be crucial features of the nature and practices of the post-liberalization state. Keywords: economic liberalization, neoliberal development, India, Gujarat, panchayats, contracting, microcredit, democratic decentralization, informality Introduction