India Working: Essays on Society and EconomyBy drawing on her extensive fieldwork in India and on the adjacent theoretical literature, Barbara Harriss-White describes the working of the Indian economy through its most important social structures of accumulation. Successive chapters explore a range of topics including labour, capital, the state, gender, religious plurality, caste and space. Despite the complexity of the subject, the book is vivid and compelling. The author's intimate knowledge of the country enables the reader to experience the Indian local scene and to engage with the precariousness of daily life. Her conclusion challenges the prevailing notion that liberalisation releases the economy from political interference and leads to a postscript on the economic base for fascism in India. This is an intelligent book, first published in 2002, by a distinguished scholar, for students of economics, as well as for those studying the region. |
Contents
Preface and acknowledgments | x |
| xiv | |
Glossary | xvi |
Abbreviations | xix |
Introduction the character of the Indian economy | 1 |
The workforce and its social structures | 17 |
Indian development and the intermediate classes | 43 |
The local State and the informal economy | 72 |
Space and synergy | 200 |
How India works | 239 |
Postscript protofascist politics and the economy | 248 |
Liberalisation and Hindu fundamentalism | 256 |
Relations between the developmental State and the intermediate classes1 | 258 |
Roles of religious minorities in the Indian economy | 264 |
| 272 | |
| 304 | |
Gender family businesses and business families | 103 |
Indias religious pluralism and its implications for the economy | 132 |
Caste and corporatist capitalism | 176 |
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Common terms and phrases
activity agrarian agricultural Arni assets black economy capital capitalist cent Chapter Christians clusters collective commodities competition contracts corporate corporatism corporatist corruption costs dalit developmental distribution dominant dowry elite employers employment example fascist female finance firms gender groups Harriss Harriss-White Hindu Hinduism Hindutva households ideology income Indian economy industrial informal economy informalisation infrastructure institutions interests intermediate classes investment Jains labour force labour market land liberalisation male market exchange ment Muslim networks nomic officials organised parties political population poverty poverty line Pradesh production protection Punjab region regulation relations religion religious rice role rural scheduled castes sector Sikh social structures south India specialised State's status structures of accumulation subsidies Tamil Nadu tion Tiruppur town trade unorganised urban Uttar Pradesh vanniars wage labour West Bengal women workers workforce