The State, Capital and Development in ‘Emerging’ India

India’s story of the last two decades since the country made a transition to a liberal economic policy regime has many sides to it that may be considered somewhat remarkable in the light of her historical legacy. India has in this period certainly been an important part of the story of the ‘rise of the rest’ and appears to be one of the most successful cases of increased integration into the global economy despite her less remarkable history of industrialization. Instead of losing ground in global competition, Indian big business which till then had grown in the sheltered environment provided by protectionism has experienced a growth more rapid than in the past and stepped on to the global stage. Two decades of development under liberalization, however, has also had a very exclusive character, its narrow social base precluding the possibility of any broad social consensus on liberalization. The durability of such a process in the background of India’s long and stable history of having a formal political structure of representative democracy based on universal adult suffrage is then another of its remarkable features. This paper tries to explain how these phenomena that may appear surprising at first sight, are mutually interrelated and linked up with the process of liberalization itself.