India in Transition
Freeing the Economy

This work offers an overview of the policies that have produced India's sorry economic performance over a third of a century. It also discusses the economic reforms begun in June 1991 by the new government of Prime Minister Rao and sets them into an historical and analytical perspective.

This work offers an overview of the policies that have produced India's sorry economic performance over a third of a century. The analysis puts into focus the crippling effects of the inward-looking, bureaucratic regime that grew to Kafkaesque dimensions, starting in the early 1950s. It provides a coherent and convincing rationale for the economic reforms begun in June 1991 by the new government of Prime Minister Rao. These reforms, also discussed, are thus set into historical and analytical perspective. This is the text of the 1992 Radhakrishnan Lectures at Oxford.