India’s Economic Reforms and Development

Rapid economic growth and eradication of abject poverty have been the core concerns of India’s polity and government throughout the last five decades. Coordinated planning with the state playing the leading role in initiating and regulating the process of development in pursuit of these objectives has been a distinctive feature. Specific targets, perceptions of the problems involved and their solutions have been changing over time. The essays in this collection provide an overview of evolution of this process culminating in the far-reaching reorientation of strategy and policies during the nineties and a critical assessment of their rationale, implementation and impact from the political economy perspective. The essays are divided into two sections: those in the first part, mostly written in the nineties, focus on key elements of overall development strategy being pursued from the early nineties, the rationale and the thrust of the structural adjustment package soon after it was unveiled by Dr. Manmohan Singh, issues relating to subsidies and foreign direct investment and broader issues of the role of the state generally and of planning in particular in the changed context. The lead piece in this section pulls together the assessment of different aspects and attempts an overall assessment of the antecedents of the reforms of the nineties, their halting and meandering course and the reasons for their less-than-expected achievements. It also reflects on the prospects for the future. Selections in the second section spanning over a much longer period discuss issues relating to poverty—concepts, data and measurement and regional variations, evolution of poverty alleviation programmes, critical commentary on their design, implementation and measures to improve their efficacy. The general thrust of the essays is critical of the design and implementation of the reform package and skeptical of its impact on growth and socio-economic inequality.