From Mixed Economy to Neo-Liberalism: Class and Caste in India's Economic Transition ∗

Abstract

Neoliberal transformation is not simply a top-down process. Neoliberal hegemony at the global level has an ally in the Indian elite in producing class-biased economic growth at the national scale. This paper examines the social contestations around India's economic policy regime, its reproduction and transformation. It shows how the coercive power of global governance institutions has worked in tandem with the interest of the local elite to produce neoliberal changes in India. But class elites are not a homogeneous group. Fractures in class power affect the nature of political-economic change. Post-independence, the rural bourgeoisie, i.e., the quasi-feudal landlords and the medium-size landowners, at different stages of political-economic history, were the main social forces influencing economic policy, and the Tatas and Birlas, India's big business houses, were their urban counterparts. 1980s were witness to the rise of a “new breed of entrepreneurs” in India with foreign business collaborations, who have now emerged as the dominant class-relevant force, constantly nudging India in the neoliberal direction. Additionally, neoliberalism has the support of the Indian upper caste since the new economic regime has created avenues for re-assertion of upper-caste power. Thus, the Indian economic space continues to be contested through endogenous politico-democratic contestations, fractured and continually reorganizing class power, caste assertions, global policy discourses and coercive power of global governance institutions.