Akeel Bilgrami at the New Indian Express:
To read the pervasive commentary in the economic sections of the world’s newspapers on what the globalising neoliberal turn in political economy has wrought in the last four decades or so in the Global South, one would think it has all been for the good—their economies have been uniformly growing, as has their middle class, and their poverty has been reduced. In the case of India, there is constant talk of it as poised to become a great economic power in the near future, to say nothing of its prestige on the international canvas as a nuclear power.
Yet, serious economic analysis has fundamentally challenged this as, in one crucial respect, downright false. Measurement of poverty in India, by criteria that are sound rather than skewed, points to increased immiseration of the worst-off in numbers as large as ever, despite a swelling middle class.
A puzzle arises then as to why, given this growing immiseration, there has been no explosion of social unrest. A familiar answer points to how populations are deflected from their suffering by the politics of identity, Hindutva politics in India being a conspicuous example. There is, no doubt, some truth in this. But deflections of that sort cannot for long prevent the intolerability of the suffering—especially if it is as extreme as studies have shown it to be—from prompting popular anger and agency. So, the puzzle remains.
In recent years, the influential work of economist Kalyan Sanyal implies a different explanation.
More here.
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