An immersive, accessible yet rigourous book that provides an understanding of the Indian economy through a political economy analysis of economic policies. The book evaluates how well different governments from pre-colonial to contemporary times executed their policies.

This book is the first major exploration of Indian political economy using a constructivist approach. Arguing that India’s open-economy policy was made, justified, and continued on the basis of the idea of openness more than its tangible effect, the book explains what sustained the idea of openness, what philosophy, interpretations of history, and international context gave it support, justification, and persuasive force. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary and historical sources, and going as far back as the 19th century, the author reconstructs how Indian policymakers have interpreted economic priorities, perceived success and failure, and evaluated the destiny of their nation. By the 1990s, their imperatives increasingly highlighted a sense of rivalry, especially with China, and globalism, a desire to play a strong role in world affairs. The book shows how a sense of nationalist urgency was created through globalism and rivalry, allowing policymakers to privilege international needs over domestic political demands, replace economic independence with interdependence as a priority, and ensure that the broad basis of India’s openness could not be challenged effectively even though certain policies faced severe opposition. This book will be of interest to those working on International Political Economy, Globalization, Economic History, Public Policy, and South Asian politics.

This book examines Ambedkar the economist. It foregrounds his economic ideas within the context of post-independence India. It also studies the socio-economic status of Dalits in the country focusing on Ambedkar’s views on inclusive and equitable growth. The volume: · Focuses on the economic writings of Ambedkar and looks at his views on caste and its economic implications, monetary and fiscal systems, as well as exchange rate and trade; · Discusses issues like land reforms and agrarian change, poverty, higher education and human rights from a Dalit perspective; · Examines the relevance of Ambedkar’s economic ideas for contemporary India. Drawing on interdisciplinary research methods, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of economics, political science, development studies, history, human rights, and South Asian studies.

Revised annually, this collection of articles by India's topmost economists and experts presents a comprehensive and critical analysis of the country's economy since its independence in 1947.

India is the second most populous country in the world and also one of the poorest. From the late 1940s to 1980, India's per capita income grew at an average annual rate of only two percent. Expansionist economic reforms during the 1980s boosted economic growth but also unfortunately resulted in high inflation and a balance of payments crisis. As a consequence, in 1991 the government announced sweeping new changes in economic policies. Economic Policy Reforms and the Indian Economy evaluates the effects of those changes and identifies areas of the Indian economy still in urgent need of reform. After an overview of Indian economic policies and development since independence, papers focus on the country's fiscal situation, the environment for private economic activity, education, the reservation of certain activities for small-scale industry, and determinants of differentials in rates of growth across the different Indian states. Contributors include respected academic specialists on India and policy reform, high-level Indian administrators, and present and past policymakers.

In a paper published by us a couple of years ago on Anthropological Economics, (the year 2020 to be precise) we had mooted the idea of trickle up economics as contrasted with the rather more popular and mundane trickle down economics. We had argued that the latter would be somewhat dubious, iffy, inconsistent and non-replicable in a wide variety of situations, particularly in the case of developing nations. We had argued that trickle up economics would actually boost wide-ranging economic growth, and add to the Gross domestic product in a big way. While we never were, and still are not big fans of socialism, we have always argued, and will continue to argue for balanced, diversified and equitable economic development models. There is a world of difference between the two. We had also argued that the economic models pursued by advanced industrial nations will not by and large, work in developing nations. Thus, American style economic conservatism is meaningless in Indian political and economic contexts. There are fundamental differences in ground realities between these two different sets of nations. It would make eminent sense for the readers of this book to read the aforesaid paper as well, as we will not be able to reproduce the contents in this paper in its entirely here; many of the proposals advocated and espoused in this paper can also be implemented by developing economies, though rather much more slowly. We focus only on the meat here............

Much has been written on the Indian economy but this is the first major attempt to present India's economic history as a continuous process, and to place the development of agriculture, industry and currency in a political and historical context.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.