"Microfinance, framed as an empowering tool for bridging gender inequalities, has changed the debt landscape in rural India, particularly since it has become increasingly financialised. My research question is twofold: how expanding microfinance changes the postcolonial Indian state, and how microfinance engenders women's identities and economic participation. This will be done by studying the "state" and "finance" across porous scales, using multi-sited ethnographic evidence, interviews and close assessment of documents. In this, my research will yield an evidence-based notion of the relation between the state and finance and how finance is experienced and challenged by women borrowers.