The Indian Renaissance: India's Rise After a Thousand Years of Decline

✍ Scribed by Sanjeev Sanyal

• Publisher: World Scientific
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 263
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

India's recent economic performance has been attracting world attention, but the phenomenon needs to be appreciated in the larger context of its long history. After a thousand years of decline, India is re-awakening not just as an economy, but as a civilization. The country now has a genuine opportunity to re-establish itself as a major global power. Since the beginning of its journey of economic progress in the 19th century, India has been passing through difficult phases.From times when there seemed to be no road ahead during the decades of socialism, to the pain of restructuring in the 1990s, India has seen it all. Economic and social forces such as demographic shifts and rising literacy levels are promising India's transformation beyond recognition. A significant change has been in terms of broader thinking and attitude towards innovation and risk. This book showcases India's journey towards the present historic juncture, its challenges ahead and its prospects for a better tomorrow, from the perspective of the new generation of Indians.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
1. Waiting for a Thousand Years......Page 10
The “Golden” Past......Page 14
The Decline......Page 23
Why Did the Indian Civilization Go Into Decline?......Page 25
The Importance of a Culture of Openness......Page 32
The Story of Sanskrit......Page 34
The 19th Century Re-awakening......Page 37
2. From Independence to Freedom......Page 42
Mahalanobis and His Mechanical Toy......Page 43
The Failure of Vision......Page 52
The Price of Geo-politics......Page 56
The Eighties and the Promise of Reform......Page 60
The Collapse......Page 64
3. The Entrepreneurial Explosion......Page 70
The First Phase: The First Breath of Freedom......Page 71
The Second Phase: The Pain of Restructuring......Page 78
The Third Phase: Take-Off......Page 85
The Indian Growth Model......Page 90
Why the Indian Model?......Page 95
Origins......Page 102
Independence and After......Page 107
The White-Collar Boom......Page 113
Manpower Shortages!......Page 115
How Big is the Middle Class?......Page 118
5. Poverty, Inequality and the Last Bastion of Control......Page 122
The Debate over Poverty and Jobless Growth......Page 123
Liberalization and Rural India......Page 126
Inequality and Unemployability......Page 132
A Brief History of Higher Education in India......Page 135
The Problem with Higher Education......Page 137
The Last Bastion of State Control......Page 141
6. The Two Revolutions......Page 150
The Demographic Revolution......Page 151
Savings and the Asian Miracle......Page 155
India’s Savings Boom......Page 158
The Primary Education Revolution......Page 159
A New Trajectory......Page 164
Can Poor Infrastructure Stop India?......Page 169
Can India Generate Enough Jobs?......Page 173
Governance and Second Generation Reforms......Page 180
The Role of the Legal System......Page 182
The Rules......Page 185
Enforcing the Rules......Page 190
The Importance of Legal Reform......Page 195
8. How India will Change......Page 200
Inevitable Urbanization......Page 201
The Middle Class and Institutional Change......Page 206
Westernization versus Modernization......Page 218
The Environmental Cost......Page 222
India’s Future Place in the World Economy......Page 226
Hard versus Soft Power......Page 230
9. Is India’s Rise Inevitable?......Page 234
The Decline of Kolkata: A Cautionary Tale......Page 237
Is the World Flat?......Page 244
Index......Page 248