Economic Development of India

The development experience of India has been a matter of much interest in recent years. India is home to a sixth of the world’s population, and about a third of the country is acknowledged to be living below the officially determined poverty line. After more than six decades of planned economic development the levels of achievement in education and health are poor. After three and a half decades of moderate growth following India’s Independence in 1947, a period characterised by centralized planning, the pace picked up in the 1980s with some opening up of the economy. It gathered further momentum after the introduction of market oriented liberalization and significant economic reforms in 1991, and in the past decade the overall growth rate of the economy has been extremely impressive. It is however important to emphasize that it is not just high growth per se but growth along with equity or distributive justice that needs to be seriously addressed. This collection presents some of the historical material on development issues in the Indian context going back about a hundred years, from Gandhi’s economic formulations to Nehru’s ideas, substantially different on issues such as the agriculture versus industry debate and the relative roles of the public and private sectors. After India gained independence in 1947 the issue of economic development assumed centre stage in national policy making. Indeed one might even say that India was the laboratory where many of the significant new hypotheses or theories on economic development have been tested.

Volume I Part 1: Thinking About Development 1. Gunnar Myrdal, ‘The Beam in Our Eyes’, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, Vol. I (Penguin, 1968), pp. 5–35. 2. Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, ‘India in Comparative Perspective’, An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions (Allen Lane, 2013), pp. 45–80. Part 2: Some Indian Perspectives 3. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, ‘Unto This Last: Sarvodaya’, in Raghavan Iyer (ed.), The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 410–33. 4. Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘The National Planning Committee and the Congress and Industry: Big Industry Versus Cottage Industry’, The Discovery of India [1946] (Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 395–409. 5. Rajani Palme Dutt, ‘India in the Modern World’, India Today (Victor Gollancz, 1940), pp. 1–18. 6. M. Arumugam, ‘Socialist Strategy of Development’, Socialist Thought in India: The Contribution of Rammanohar Lohia (Sterling Publishers, 1978), pp. 91–123. 7. Planning Commission, ‘Self-Reliance and the Perspective for Development’, Fourth Five-Year Plan: A Draft Outline (Government of India, 1996), pp. 24–38. 8. ‘Evidence Before the Southborough Committee’ [1919], B. R. Ambedkar: Perspectives on Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies, eds. Sukhdeo Thorat and Narender Kumar (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 65–87. 9. M. L. Dantwala, ‘Trusteeship: An Alternative Ideology’, Dilemmas of Growth: The Indian Experience (Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 29–42. 10. Sukhamoy Chakravarty, ‘Development Economics and the Indian Experience’, in Kaushik Basu and Pulin Nayak (eds.), Development Policy and Economic Theory (Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 1–13. 11. Benjamin Zachariah, ‘The Debate on Gandhian Ideas’, Developing India: An Intellectual and Social History (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 156–210. 12. Baldev Raj Nayar, ‘National Planning for Autarky and State Hegemony: Development Strategy under Nehru’, Indian Economic Review, 1997, 32, 1, 13–38. Part 3: Famines, Poverty, Inequality 13. Amartya Sen, ‘Ingredients of Famine Analysis: Availability and Entitlements’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1981, 96, 3, 433–64. 14. Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern, ‘Poverty in Palanpur’, World Bank Economic Review, 1991, 5, 1, 23–55. 15. M. S. Ahluwalia, ‘Rural Poverty and Agricultural Performance in India’, Journal of Development Studies, 1978, 14, 3, 298–323. 16. K. Sundaram, and Suresh D. Tendulkar, ‘Poverty Among Social and Economic Groups in India in 1990s’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2003, 38, 50, 5263–76. 17. Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, ‘Poverty and Inequality in India: A Re-examination’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2002, 37, 36, 3729–49. 18. Martin Ravallion and Gaurav Dutt, ‘Why has Economic Growth Been More Pro-poor in Some States of India Than Others?’, Journal of Development Economics, 2002, 68, 381–400. Volume II Part 1: The State and the Market 19. Amartya Sen, ‘Markets, State and Social Opportunity’, Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 111–45. 20. B. S Minhas, ‘Public Versus Private Sector: Neglect of Lessons of Economics in Indian Policy Formulation’, Artha Vijnana, 1991, 33, 1, 1–11. 21. Mrinal Datta-Chaudhuri, ‘Market Failure and Government Failure’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1990, 4, 3, 25–39. 22. Pulin Nayak, ‘The State and the Market’, Economic and Political Weekly, 1996, 31, 4, 18–22. Part 2: Experiences from Two States 23. Prabhat Ghosh and Shaibal Gupta, ‘Economic Growth and Human Development in Bihar’, in Shovan Ray (ed.), Backwaters of Development: Six Deprived States of India (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 37–71. 24. P. K. Michael Tharakan, ‘Kerala Model Revisited: New Problems, Fresh Challenges’, in A. Vaidyanathan and K. L. Krishna (eds.), Institutions and Mrkets in India’s Development: Essays for K. N. Raj (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 345–59. Part 3: Political Concerns 25. Atul Kohli, ‘Politics of Economic Growth in India 1980–2005, Parts I and II’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2006, 41, 13 and 14. 26. Sony Pellissery and Armando Barrientos, ‘Expansion of Social Assistance: Does Politics Matter?’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2013, XLVIII, 9, 47–54. 27. Bob Currie, ‘Poverty, Politics and the Political’, The Politics of Hunger in India: A Study of Democracy, Governance and Kalahandi’s Poverty (Macmillan, 2000), pp. 11–33. Part 4: On Equality 28. Gunnar Myrdal, ‘Equality and Democracy’, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, Vol. II (Penguin, 1968), pp. 741–98. 29. Jagdish Bhagwati, ‘Education, Class Structure and Income Equality’, World Development, 1973, 1, 5, 21–36. 30. Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram, ‘Understanding Poverty and Inequality in Urban India Since Reforms’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2012, XLVII, 47 and 48, 44–52. 31. Sabyasachi Kar and S. Saktivel, ‘Reforms and Regional Inequality in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2007, 42, 47, 69–73, 73–7. Part 5: Monetary and Federal Fiscal Issues 32. Y. V. Reddy, ‘Monetary and Financial Sector Reforms in India: A Practitioner’s Perspective’, in Kaushik Basu (ed.), India’s Emerging Economy (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 62–81. 33. M. Govinda Rao, ‘Indian Fiscal Federalism in Globalizing Environment: Trends and Reform Challenges’, in Pulin B. Nayak, Bishwanath Goldar, and Pradeep Agrawal (eds.), India’s Economy and Growth (Sage, 2010), pp. 271–97. Part 6: Gender, Dowry, Son Preference 34. Sunny Jose, ‘Women’s Paid Work and Well-being in Rajasthan’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2012, XLVII, 45, 48–55. 35. Siwan Anderson and Debraj Ray, ‘The Age Distribution of Missing Women in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2012, XLVII, 47 and 48, 87–95. 36. Sonia Dalmia and Pareena G. Lawrence, ‘The Institution of Dowry in India: Why it Continues to Prevail’, Journal of Developing Areas, 2005, 38, 2, 71–93. 37. Rohini P. Pande and Nan Marie Astone, ‘Explaining Son Preference in Rural India: The Independent Role of Structural Versus Individual Factors’, Population Research and Policy Review, 2007, 26, 1, 1–29. Volume III Part 1: Perspectives on Development 38. Syed NawabHaider Naqvi, ‘Development Economics as a Paradigm’, Development Economics: Nature and Significance (Sage Publications, 2002), pp. 159–89. 39. Amartya Sen, ‘Development: Which Way Now?’, Economic Journal, 1983, 93, 745–62. 40. Paul N. Rosenstein-Rodan, ‘Natura Facit Saltum: Analysis of the Disequilibrium Growth Process’, in Gerald Meier and Dudley Seers (eds.), Pioneers in Development (The World Bank, 1984), pp. 207–21. 41. Sukhamoy Chakravarty, ‘Development Economics in Perspective’, Writings on Development (Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 45–68. 42. Pranab Bardhan, ‘Economics of Development and the Development of Economics’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993, 7, 2, 129–42. 43. Deepak Lal, ‘Economic Reforms and Poverty Alleviation’, in Isher Judge Ahluwalia and I. M. D. Little (eds.), India’s Economic Reforms and Development: Essays for Manmohan Singh (Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 231–52. 44. Amit Bhaduri, ‘Predatory Growth’, Economic and Political Weekly, 2008, 43, 16, 10–14. 45. Prabhat Patnaik, ‘Some Implications of Contemporary Globalisation’, Indian Economic Journal, 2011, 59, 1, 56–68. Part 2: Some Theoretical Models 46. Amit Bhaduri, ‘A Study in Agricultural Backwardness under Semi Feudalism’, Economic Journal, Mar. 1973, 120–37. 47. Kaushik Basu, ‘The Emergence of Isolation and Interlinkage in Rural Markets’, Oxford Economic Papers, 1983, 35, 2, 262–80. 48. Partha Dasgupta and Debraj Ray, ‘Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Policy’, Economic Journal, 1987, 97, 385, 177–88. 49. A. K. Dasgupta, ‘Keynesian Economics and Under-developed Countries Again’, Economic and Political Weekly, 1987, 22, 38, 1601–3, 1605–6. 50. V. K. R. V. Rao, ‘Investment, Income and the Multiplier in an Underdeveloped Economy’ [1952], Indian Economic Review, 2008, 56–66. 51. A. K. Dasgupta, ‘