Abstract
This paper questions the accuracy and validity of the criticisms made by Ananya Roy regarding the approach to community development of a Mumbai-based NGO, SPARC, and its partner grassroots federations in Mumbai. This includes the suggestion that the focus on sanitation rather than on land tenure is an appeal to middle-class values about cleanliness and that their support for relocating those who lived right next to the railway tracks made them agents of the state. When viewed through a demand-responsive economic perspective, SPARC’s support for community toilets was in response to what grassroots organizations asked for, and these also have high returns. Similarly, SPARC’s support for resettlement for those living alongside the railway tracks was for those who were going to be moved, and this support allowed them to have far more influence on where, when and how the resettlement took place. Here too, the high returns from faster, safer trains meant cost savings that were higher than the costs of providing good quality accommodation for those who had to move.