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This volume seeks to unravel and contextualize the so-called dichotomy of 'old' and 'new' India and what binds them together. To understand this complex process, it attempts to apply a long-term historical perspective, a different conception of the economy and cross-disciplinary approaches.
The exceptional feature of this volume is the large historical canvas of essays and its sensitivity to the regional dimension in a country as large and diverse as India. They deal with issues ranging from land and agriculture, entrepreneurship, industry and demographic trends to a critical anatomy of modern Indian economic historiography. Together these essays contribute in providing significantly new and enriching insights into the complex process of transition from colonial to post-colonial economic development. There has been a conscious effort in most cases to capture the influence of the colonial economic structures and processes in shaping the trajectory of growth and development in the post-independence period. Drawing upon a large amount of extremely rich and varied data and information on the socio-economic trends, the book is lucid, well-crafted and reader-friendly.
List of contents
List of Abbreviations -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Preface -- Introduction -- Paradox of Development/Rising Growth and Disparity/Decline of Agriculture/Poverty Reduction/History and -- Part I Land and Agriculture -- 1. Evolution of Land Rights in India/S. Neelakantan -- 2. Structural Changes in Land Distribution and Their Implications for Improving Access to Land/K. N. Nair and Arindam Banerjee -- 3. Changing Agrarian Structure in India: Reflections on Pre-independence Ideology and Post-independence Reality/A. Vaidyanathan -- 4. Population Pressure and Labour Intensification: An Indian Historical Perspective/N. Krishnaji -- 5. Institutional Strangleholds: Agricultural Science and the State in India/Rajeswari S. Raina -- Part II Entrepreneurship and Industry -- 6. Revisiting Indian Capitalists in Colonial India: Some Critical Reflections/Raman Mahadevan -- 7. From Merchants to Multi-national Enterprises: European Trading Firms in South India's Plantation Sector/Tharian George K. -- 8. Fiat or Trust? A Story of Indian Banking (1857-2007) with a Regional Perspective/D. Narayana -- 9. Six Decades of Industrial Development: Growth of the Manufacturing Sector in India from the 1940s/C. P. Chandrasekhar -- Part III Demographic Trends -- 10. Fertility in India since Independence: An Overview/K. Srinivasan -- 11. Mortality Trends and Patterns in India: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives/K. Navaneetham and C. S. Krishnakumar -- 12. A Long Haul: Revisiting International Migration from India during the 19th and 20th Centuries/S. Irudaya Rajan and Prabhat Kumar -- Part IV A Critical Theoretical Perspective -- 13. Pathways to India's Economic Past/K. T. Rammohan -- About the Editors -- Notes on Contributors -- Index.
About the author
D. Narayana is Reserve Bank of India Chair Professor at Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Raman Mahadevan is Professor, Institute of Development Alternatives, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Summary
This book is a benchmark, cross-disciplinary study that straddles the colonial and post-colonial periods, the ‘new’ and ‘old’ India, seeking to capture the long-term dynamics of growth and development across sectors in India. A notable and distinctive feature of this volume is its focus on the regional dimension.
