The Indian Economy In Transition

Taking the period following the advent of liberalization, this book explains the transition of the Indian economy against the backdrop of development. If the objective is to explore the new economic map of India, then the distinct contributions in the book could be seen as twofold. The first is the analytical frame whereby the authors deploy a unique Marxist approach consisting of the initial concepts of class process and the developing countries to address India's economic transition. The second contribution is substantive whereby the authors describe India's economic transition as epochal, materializing out of the new emergent triad of neo-liberal globalization, global capitalism and inclusive development. This is how the book theorizes the structural transformation of the Indian economy in the twenty-first century. Through this framework, it interrogates and critiques the given debates, ideas and policies about the economic development of a developing nation.

Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the world's leading economists, offers a fascinating overview of the policies that produced India's sorry economic performance over a third of a century. His analysis puts into sharp focus the crippling effects of the inward-looking, bureaucratic regime that grew to Kafkaesque dimensions, starting in the early 1950s. It provides therefore a coherent and convincing rationale for the economic reforms begun in June 1991 by the new government of PrimeMinister Rao. These reforms, also discussed by Professor Bhagwati, are thus set into historical and analytical perspective. Written with wit and elegance, this text of the 1992 Radhakrishnan Lectures at Oxford is readily accessible to a wide readership.

India's Economic Transition examines the reforms and their impact on the political economy of India. The introduction to the volume analyzes the politics that shaped economic policy during three broad phases--from independence to 1968, between 1969 and 1974, and the period after 1975--leading to the balance of payment crisis of 1991. The book addresses such questions as: What were the economic reforms undertaken after 1991? Why did they occur and how were they sustained? What was the impact of economic reforms on India's political economy? In addition, it includes significant features of the post-reform political economy like the growing importance of Indian federalism; a new politics of regulation governing markets in areas such as telecommunications, power, and stock exchanges; industrial lobbying; trade union activism; and the curious mix of benefits and costs associated with the rise of India's IT sector.

According to Nehru, the transition from a backward agricultural society to a modern industrialized society was the only road for India to progress. So, for the past few decades, India has focused its transitional development around movement away from a state-controlled economy toward that of a free market economy. Transition and Development in India challenges the current basis of this theory of development, laying the groundwork for an entirely new Marxist approach to transition that should apply not just to India, but to all developing nations.

This reader, the third in the Critical issues in Indian politics series, deals with the political and economic processes that shaped the reform initiatives in India since 1991.