Plutocracy, Cronyism & Populism (English, Har

For over a quarter century now, Indian society has become a battleground for competitive neoliberal policies by successive political regimes. As a result, notwithstanding the formal democratic system and the stated pursuit of socially inclusive economic growth, the present-day Indian political economy seems to be characterized by the interplay of plutocracy, cronyism and populism. Little wonder the country is facing a grim spectacle of unprecedented multi-faceted disparities and adverse inclusion of the masses in the socio-economic and political process. This is reflected in a shockingly small number of the entitled citizens who manage to get a place in the organized sector of the national economy while many times a larger number of the dispossessed and discriminated persons manage to survive with marginal, irregular and inadequate access to sub-human levels of living by their sheer grit, ingenuity and willingness to make downward adjustments to what their adverse inclusion forces on them. Expectedly, the masters of economic growth and democratic management of the neoliberal development discourse and governance amass enormous family fortunes and secure places in the power structure for a number of their future generations. All these widely noticed, but equally callously neglected, aspects of Indias democracy form dominant parts of the discourse on Indias economic growth and the accompanying despondency, though luckily, with some rays of hope here and there. What the Indian Political Economy Association presents in this volume is inspired by the hope and belief that these analyses may possibly form parts of the rays of hope for a major part of one billion plus people who call themselves Indians in the 21st Century.