Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley [distributor], 2013. xv, 384 pp. (Figures, tables.) C$26.95, paper. ISBN 978-0-7456-6112-4.
India Today is a vigorously informative volume that conscientiously examines some of the big debates of contemporary India in the context of wide-ranging empirical and theoretical perspectives. The co-authored text will be extremely relevant for academics, students, policy makers and development practitioners working in India and beyond, as well as those curious to understand more about the extent and nature of economic, political and social transformations taking place in post-liberal India.
Stuart Corbridge, John Harriss and Craig Jeffrey have well-established research commitments in India and bring their intimate knowledge to bear on a series of timely questions which represent the titles of stand alone, yet intersecting chapters: When and why did India take off? How have the poor fared (and others too)? Why hasn’t economic growth delivered more for Indian workers? Is the Indian state delivering on promises of “inclusive growth” and social justice? How did a weak state promote audacious reforms? Has India’s democracy been a success? Is government in India becoming more responsive? Does India have a civil society? Has the rise of Hindu nationalism halted? Why has Maoism become such a force in India? Does India have a civil society? Does caste still matter in India? How much have things changed for Indian women? Can India benefit from its demographic dividend? The answers to these subjects are examined through a broad and rigorous review of the literature to illuminate contrasting arguments across different sites and scales of analysis, within India and beyond. This capacity to navigate a range of disciplinary approaches and regional material reflects the interdisciplinary and situated expertise of the authors and contributes to one of the book’s greatest achievements.
Concerning the trajectory of India’s economic “take off,” Corbridge, Harriss and Jeffrey are careful to nuance the more popularized narrative of India’s “neoliberal turn” in 1991 with the IMF reforms. Instead, they place this moment within the context of India’s much earlier liberalizing tendencies and institution building to show how these practices provided the fertile foundations for India’s longstanding economic growth to accelerate. Readers acquainted with Harriss and Corbridge’s earlier work, Reinventing India, may find this relatively familiar territory. Yet, this book importantly expands the lens on India’s economic successes to chapters that critically assess the unevenness of economic growth and its manifestations, notably around employment and poverty alleviation. In the context of the Government of India’s public commitment to “inclusive growth,” attention is turned to the efficacy of “pro-poor” policies (Right to Education, Right to Food and Right to Work) that were largely implemented under the Congress-led coalition. These have been mainly celebrated in the global development community, not least India’s Right to Work Act, however Corbridge et al.’s optimism is somewhat tempered by their grounded insights into the politics of the Indian middle classes. They argue that in everyday life, the aspirations of India’s middle classes conflict with, and often compromise, the aims of “pro-poor” policies and efforts to address uneven development.
The second section turns the attention to politics to unpack India’s politics-business nexus and reveal how this has fundamentally informed the shape of India’s post-liberal landscape, comprising economic reforms by stealth and a notably pro-business rather than a pro-market agenda. The notion of India’s democratic success and extent is unraveled through a methodical discussion that contrasts the scope of its formal and substantive processes since Independence. This generally positive story is further nuanced through an examination of the limits of governance and the lived realities of progressive democratization in contemporary India, where questions hang over whether the “right” people benefit from political power across different scales. The ways in which power has found expression through overt and more banal forms of everyday violence represents the backdrop for thinking about the fortune of Hindu Nationalism and of Maoism. Despite the Hindu right Bharatiya Janata Party being currently out of power in the national government, the tract of Hindutva sentiment and its pernicious anti-Muslim rhetoric remains intact. Meanwhile, situated within a broader discussion around “insurgency,” it is argued that Maoism has gained traction in India’s rural resource-rich states due to a complex, situated relationship between political mobilization, state maladministration, accumulated grievance and liberalization. Yet, whilst the reasons behind the rise of Maoism in India may be contested, the overriding conclusion is that, in the end, the poorest will always lose out.
Although of course implicated in the first two sections of the book, the question of society in India today receives its own platform in the third and final section, where the circumstances of civil society, caste, women and India’s demographic dividend come under scrutiny. These form strong stand-alone chapters, but lack the kind of crosscutting arguments which cohere parts 1 and 2. More explicit linkages between the character of India’s civil society and the critiques leveled around middle-class politics and poverty alleviation may have been productive. However, the robust and logical analysis of the continued yet shifting centrality of caste underpins a particularly valuable chapter, not only for students and relative newcomers to India, but also those seeking clarity on what can be a perplexing aspect of Indian society. The mixed optimism on the situation for women in India serves to remind the reader of India’s uneven regional development, particularly in recent decades. Though the crucial social-economic indicators may be up, their scope is partial and mainly limited to urban areas and more progressive regions. The book moves towards its conclusion with a view to the future, and an examination of the potential for India to capitalize on its pending demographic dividend. Set in contrast to China, India’s future looks much bleaker, its failure to facilitate mass education and health services, infrastructure and good governance means it will likely squander this window for positive transformation.
It is a truism of reviews on such far-reaching volumes to point out areas not included, so perhaps it would be more interesting to speculate on the headline questions of a revised edition in twenty years time, when it is very likely that the vital and increasingly pressured nexus between water, food and the environment will be much harder to overlook in understanding the dynamics of India’s economy, politics and society. In sum, however, India Today impressively marks a particular moment in post-liberal India. The authors have succeeded in representing tremendous breadth and depth of perspectives and although offering their specific steer through the material they decline to close down the debates but instead enable the reader to interpret India’s complexities: its contradictions and juxtapositions and its achievements and flaws.
Philippa Williams
Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
pp. 877-879