A Sixth of Humanity : Independent India's Development Odyssey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kapur, Devesh.

Series:

Modern South Asia Series

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (825 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2026.

Summary:

India's development odyssey stands at a critical juncture. In A Sixth of Humanity, Devesh Kapur and Avrind Subramanian trace how one of the world's largest and most diverse countries uniquely attempted four concurrent transformations: building a state, creating an economy, changing society and forging a sense of nationhood. By drawing on deep archives of political and economic policy documents spanning over 75 years, Kapur and Subramanian create a compelling picture of the current state of India's political economy and the crossroads it now faces. Connecting national development policies to lived realities across the country and social groups, they provide a roadmap of India's past choices and the crossroads it now faces.

Contents:

Cover

Series page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication page

Contents

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

The Churn-for Better, for Worse

History, the Argument and Us

What Democracy Gave, What It Took Away

What Socialism Took Away, What Reforms Offered

What the Indian State's Many Avatars Tell Us

Peeking into the Indias Inside India

The Surprising Successes, the Unexpected Failures

Outline of the Book

Part 1 - Origins and Order

I. Freighted Inheritance, Fraught Beginnings and Fateful Choices

Freighted Inheritance

Fraught Beginnings

Peaceful Decolonization and Political Rupture

Violent Partition

Internal Assimilation

Fateful Choices: A Framework

State

Society

Nation

Markets

The Fateful Choices Made

Politics: Precocious Democracy with Universal Franchise

Nation: The Idea of India

Religion

Society: Region, Language and Federalism

Society: Caste and Tribals

Society: Patriarchy and Gender

State and Markets

State and Nation: The Hobbesian State

Guarantees for Few Versus Opportunities for All

The Intangible Early Bequest: The Democratic Sensibility

State Over Society

Conclusion

II. Order: The Paradoxes of the Hobbesian State

Order and the State

The Achievement: Avoiding Extreme Disorder and Instability

Avoiding Extreme Economic Instability

Avoiding Political Instability

The Rise and Decline of Disorder

Localized Disorder Along India's Cleavages

Disorder Targeting the State29

Societal Disorder: Communal Violence

Social Disorder: Riots and Protests

Why Macro-Order Despite Multiple Micro-Disorders?

Democracy

Coercive State Capacity

Personnel

Legal Architecture

Quotidian Rule of Law and Justice

The Indian Hobbesian State: Macro Strengths and Micro Comorbidities.

Part 2 - State, Markets and Economy

III. Misunderstood and Misdiagnosed: India's Growth and Policy Regimes

The Four Phases

The Planning Phase: Mischaracterized6

The 1980s: The First and Last Decade of True Import Substitution

The Neoliberal Era: East Asian Tiger and the Improving Redistributive State

The 2010s: 'Growth Without a Story' or a Story of Weaker Growth?

The GDP Measurement Mess

IV. Planning Failure: Neither Growth nor Structural Transformation

Growth and the Failed/Thwarted Structural Transformations

The Gandhi-Rawls Transformation

The Phules-Capability Transformation

The Clark-Kuznets-Lewis Transformation

The Marx-to-Market Transformation

The Ricardo-Smith Transformation

The China Benchmark

Why Scarcity in India?

The 'Neglect' of Agriculture

Strangling the Domestic Private Sector

Nationalization

Onerous Regulations

Prohibitions and Constricting, Conditional Permissions, alias Licencing

Agricultural Neglect and Throttling the Private Sector: The Verdict

Licencing: Why Such a Difficult and Delayed Exit?

V. Failure Amidst Success: Growth Withou t Structu ral Tran sformation

The Deep Mystery

The Pathology and Patterns

Explanations

Weak Agricultural Growth

Midgets Making Widgets: Premature Democracy, Overregulation and Size

High Cost of Non-Tradeable Inputs: Electricity

Labour Market: Government as Monopsony Employer

Services and Dutch Disease

Sociological and Intangible Factors

Conclusion and the Final Sting in the Tail

VI. The Kamadhenu Fiscal and Redistributive State

The Most Vulnerable Fiscal State?

The Colonial Past and Stigmatized Taxation

Analytical History: Size and Vulnerability of the Populist and Neoliberal States

Size

Macroeconomic Vulnerability.

Democracy and the Expenditure State

Democracy and Tax State

Taxation: The Achilles Heel of the Indian Fiscal State

Taxation of the Agricultural Rich

Non-Tax Revenues: Public Sector Enterprises

The Middle Class

Fiscalizing Land

Taxing the Extremely Rich

Why Exclusions from Taxation?

Taxation and Spending: Cross-Country Evidence on Too Much or Too Little

The Fiscal State and Macroeconomic Stability

Why Have Markets Not 'Punished' India?

Can Markets Be Overly Sanguine?

VII. Globalization: Skewed and Ambivalent

Distinctiveness of Globalization: The Roles of Trade, Finance, FDI, People and Ideas

Trade

Finance

Foreign Direct Investment

People20

Ideas in (Globalized) Indians31

Defying, Not Deifying, Comparative Advantage: Costs and Benefits

Costs

Mixed Benefits of the Brain Drain

The Globalization Ambivalence Paradox: Success as Orphan

Explaining the Two Puzzles

Conclusion: The Changing Landscape

From De-Globalization to Re-Globalization

From Supplicant to Suitor

From Geo-Economic Wannabe to Geopolitical Almost-Be

From Bit Player and Pleader to Active Participant

From Servants of the Soil to Masters of the Universe

Postscript

Part 3 - State, Society and Development

VIII. Building Leviathan: Bureaucracy, Legibility and Presence

Background

The Administrative State: Bureaucracy

Scope and Size7

Organizational Pathologies

Transfers and Vacancies

Organizational Norms and Culture

An Erratically 'Legible' State

Presence

Duality: Successes of Episodic Delivery

Improving the Performance of the Indian State

IX. The Development State I: Hardware of Connectivity

The Caste System of Public Goods Provision: Spending by the State and Private Sector

Public Goods Provision: Infrastructure Outcomes.

Transportation

Communications

The Singular Achievement

Building Infrastructure: Costs

Inefficiencies

X. The Development State II: Socialist Business

The Evolution of India's State-Owned Enterprises

Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSUs)

Performance

Sectoral Performance

State-Government-Owned Enterprises (SPSUs)

The Costs of Underperformance

Opportunity Costs in Foregone Revenues and Spending

Costs of Thwarted Structural Transformation

Why Was Public Sector Performance Poor?

Multiple Public Objectives

Regional Development

Employment

Poverty and Populism

Management

The Real Failure? Lack of Exit Despite Underperformance

The Mai-Baapism Roots of State Capitalism in India

Interests, Ideology and Intellectuals

Why Has the Public Sector Made a Comeback?

XI. The Development State III: Joint Family Banking

Analytical Framework

The Four Phases of Socialist Finance

Phase 1, 1950-1970: Agriculture, Agriculture, Agriculture

Phase 2, 1969-1990: Finance as Inclusion, Prototype Mass Welfarism, and Stealth Taxation

Finance as Inclusion (Deposit Side)

Finance as Redistribution (Credit Side)

Finance as Stealth Taxation

Finance for Growth

Phase 3, 1990-2010: Maturity Transformation on Steroids, Setting Up Stigmatized Capitalism

Phase 4, 2010-2020: The Twin Balance-Sheet Challenge, Deleveraging and Stigmatized Capitalism

Overall Evaluation

XII. The Development State IV: Software of Human Capabilities

Introduction: Elite Priorities

The Facts

Health: Adults

Health: Children

Education

Assessing Outcomes in Development Time

Public Goods Provision: Explanations

Time Pattern

Explanations: Differential Outcomes

Part 4 - Nation of Indias.

XIII. Nation-Building: Hierarchies, Inequalities and Social Cleavages

Disadvantages

Caste

Tribals

The Backwardness Conundrum: Other Backward Castes

Women

Diversity

Regions

Cognitive Connectedness

Building Conviviality: Public Spaces and Public Cultures

Representation: The Promise and Perils

Outcomes: Have the Lagging Groups Caught Up?

XIV. Nation-Building Through Fiscal Federalism

A Brief History of Fiscal Federalism

The Vertical Arrangements: Centre Versus States

Tax Collection and Retention

Expenditure Magnitudes and Priorities

Horizontal Imbalance: Rectifying Inequity Between States

Characterizing the Indian Model of Aid

Overall Magnitudes24

Donors and Beneficiaries

Hobbesian Aid

Development Aid

Politics of India's Aid Model: The Two Wedges

Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Fiscal Federalism

The Creation of a Common Market: GST as the Apogee of Fiscal Federalism

The Third Neglected Tier of Governance

Introduction and Facts

History

Why Neglect?

Outcomes

Appendix Tables

XV. India's Indias: Succeeding and Failing Uniquely

Paths to Success

Neither Agriculture, Manufacturing nor Services: The Kerala Model

The Precocious India Model of Services-Based Transformation: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi

The Lewis Model of Manufacturing Success with Limited Agricultural Crop Success: Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu

Failures and Disasters

Failure Despite Spectacular Agricultural Crop Success: The Rise and Fall of Punjab Versus the Rise and Rise of Haryana

Ideology, Governance and Class Conflict: West Bengal's Reversal of Fortune

Identity, Inequality and the Aid Curse in the Gangetic Low-Income Trap

Divergence: Contingencies, Agency and Reversals.

Part 5 - Conclusion.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Kapur, Devesh A Sixth of Humanity

ISBN:

9780197837276

OCLC:

1591537752