India

Description

This book explores the role of public action in eliminating deprivation and expanding human freedoms in India. The analysis is based on a broad and integrated view of development, which focuses on well-being and freedom rather than the standard indicators of economic growth. The authors place human agency at the centre of stage, and stress the complementary roles of different institutions (economic, social, and political) in enhancing effective freedoms.

In comparative international perspective, the Indian economy has done reasonably well in the period following the economic reforms initiated in the early nineties. However, relatively high aggregate economic growth coexists with the persistence of endemic deprivation and deep social failures. Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen relate this imbalance to the continued neglect, in the post-reform period, of public involvement in crucial fields such as basic education, health care, social security, environmental protection, gender equity, and civil rights, and also to the imposition of new burdens such as the accelerated expansion of military expenditure. Further, the authors link these distortions of public priorities with deep-seated inequalities of social influence and political power. The book discusses the possibility of addressing these biases through more active democratic practice.

About the author

Jean Drèze, Honorary Professor, Delhi School of Economics

Amartya Sen, Master, Trinity College, Cambridge University

Table of contents

1:Introduction and Approach
2:Economic Development and Social Opportunity
3:India in Comparative Perspective
4:India and China
5:Basic Education as a Political Issue
6:Population, Health, and the Environment
7:Gender Inequality and Women's Agency
8:Security and Democracy in a Nuclear India
9:Well Beyond Liberalization
10:The Practice of Democracy