Authors: Tia Nerurkarr
Abstract: This paper examines the socio-economic phenomenon of “connections” in India, analysing how kinship, caste, and professional networks operate as a form of unregulated informal currency that mediates access to employment, political influence, and business opportunity. Formal institu-tions govern much of India’s legal and financial architecture, yet a parallel system of social capital frequently determines who can convert ability into opportunity. Drawing on a systematic synthesis of peer-reviewed research, government statistics, and international governance indices, this study traces the dual character of these networks: a critical informal safety net in a labour market where the large majority of workers remain informally employed, and simultaneously a mechanism that entrenches nepotism and undermines meritocracy in the formal sector. Evidence from correspondence-based hiring audits, national employment surveys, and corruption indices indicates that reliance on relational networks produces measurable disparities in access, disadvantaging individuals without inherited or acquired social capital, particularly along caste lines. By conceptualising connections as a medium of exchange operating outside codified regulation, the paper argues that the institutional bypass and nepotism this creates warrant the same policy scrutiny typically reserved for unregulated financial instruments. The study concludes that strengthening institutional transparency, evidenced already by early digitisation efforts such as the Government e-Marketplace, is central to narrowing the exclusionary effects of this informal currency.
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