Political Economy of Contemporary India

The need to understand regional variation in politics and political economy, and how these have contributed to different developmental outcomes across various parts of India, remains pressing. It was suggested in the early 1960s that in India the central government was largely under the control of a national capitalist class, while the states were dominated by landed interests. Does such a formulation hold ground today? With increasing political mobilization among lower classes and castes and the diffusion of economic power to the state level after the reforms, how can variation in regional development be characterized? This volume aims to answer these questions by studying aspects of macro-economy, land, labour and employment from a variety of analytical and disciplinary perspectives. It offers rich analyses of economic growth viewed through the lenses of caste, regional politics and public investment, while also looking at long-term trends in employment and wages in the public sector, and the consequences of legal and policy reform.

List of tables; List of figures and maps; 1. From 'intermediate regime' to crony capitalism: changing contours of India's political economy R. Nagaraj and Sripad Motiram; Part I. Economy-wide Considerations: 2. The relationship between the Reserve Bank and the Government of India: political economy of central banking in India Partha Ray; 3. The limits of liberalization: the power sector Elizabeth Chatterjee; Part II. Political Economy by Regions of India: 4. Political economy of a dominant caste Rajeshwari Deshpande and Suhas Palshikar; 5. Populism and party: society developmental regimes in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal Kalaiyarasan A.; 6. India's agricultural development: a regional perspective P. S. Vijayshankar; Part III. Urban Labour Markets: 7. Public sector employment: what has changed? R. Nagaraj; 8. New paradigms of labour relations: how much do they explain? Supriya Roy Chowdhury; Part IV. Land and Rural Labour: 9. Peripheral agriculture? Macro and micro dynamics of land sales and land use changes in the 'rural' economy of Kancheepuram M. Vijayabaskar and Ajit Menon; 10. Infrastructures of growth, corridors of power: the making of the SEZ Act 2005 Preeti Sampat; 11. Land-based financing for infrastructure: what is new about India's land conflicts? Sai Balakrishnan; 12. Political economy of land acquisition and resource development in India Shashi Ratnaker Singh; 13. Advice and dissent: the federal politics of reforming India's land acquisition legislation Rob Jenkins; 14. 'Workers' or 'beneficiaries': the varied politics of NREGA implementation in south-west Madhya Pradesh Nandini Nayak; About the contributors; Index.

R. Nagaraj is a Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. An economist by training, he has worked on India's economic growth and industrialization, public sector performance and industrial labour market. He has taught a variety of courses on Indian economy, the comparative economic development of India and China, and development economics. His most recent edited book, Growth, Inequality and Social Development in India: Is Inclusive Growth Possible? (2012), was published for the United Nations Research Institute For Social Development, Geneva.
Sripad Motiram is Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Southern California. Broadly, his research falls in the areas of development economics, welfare economics, political economy and applied econometrics. His work has been published in journals such as Oxford Development Studies, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Review of Development Economics and Economic and Political Weekly.