The economy of modern India, 1860-1970

An analysis of the process of economic change in modern India is central to an understanding of the country's history over the last hundred years. Numerous specialist studies exist on some part of this process - on agricultural development in a peasant society, the imperial impact on colonial income, industrialisation and business history, the implementation of state planning after 1947, and the coming of the 'green revolution' to South Asia. In this volume in The New Cambridge History of India, Dr Tomlinson draws together and expands upon the disparate literature to provide a comprehensive account of the economic history of colonial and post-colonial India. He examines the debates over imperialism development and underdevelopment, and sets them in the context of historical change in agriculture, trade and manufacture, and the relations between business, the economy and the state. What emerges is a picture of an economy in which some output growth and technical change occurred both before and after 1947, but in which a broadly based process of development has been constrained by structural and market imperfections, the manipulation of social and political power to distort access to economic opportunity and reward, shortages of essential resources, including foreign exchange, and inappropriate and debilitating government policies. Tomlinson argues that India has thus had an underdeveloped economy, with weak market structures and underdeveloped institutions, which has in turn profoundly influenced the social, political and ecological history of South Asia. The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970 offers a concise and coherent account of the characteristics and performance of the modern Indian economy and will be widely read by students and specialists of South Asian studies, development economics and economic history.