Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T07:48:35.482Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 2 - New Interpretations of India's Economic Growth in the Twentieth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

Kunal Sen
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, UK
Get access

Summary

Introduction

At independence, there was significant expectation about India's economic performance, both among its own population and externally. This expectation of strong economic performance in the post-independence period was largely disappointing. After an initial period of rapid growth just after independence, the Indian economy went into a protracted period of slow growth in per capita income from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. Growth in per capita incomes during this period was less than 1 percent a year, less than most other comparable economies of the developing world (Bhagwati 1993). India's standard of living fell behind that of many countries such as China and South Korea, when in fact, at independence, India's standard of living had exceeded that of those countries. In the last two decades of the twentieth century there was a perceptible break from the economic stagnation of the previous decades and the Indian economy grew at rates that far exceeded the average growth rate in the first few decades after independence.

What was particularly new about India's economic growth in the last two decades of the twentieth century? How was it different from earlier growth episodes both in the colonial and post-colonial periods? A revisionist view has argued that India's growth in recent decades is not particularly distinctive as compared to average Indian economic growth since independence or with growth rates of other comparable countries or regions (De Long 2003; Nayyar 2006).

Type
Chapter
Information
A New India?
Critical Reflections in the Long Twentieth Century
, pp. 23 - 42
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×