Indian economic philosophy and crony capitalism

Abstract

One grave concern that the Indian economy and society face today is that of ubiquitous corruption and cronyism. So many large scandals involving businesses and government have unfolded in the last few years (Parakh, 2014; Rai, 2014; Thakurta, 2014), and yet not many Indian scholars, until very recently, have shown any urgency to tackle this topic. In this chapter, we attempt to fill this gap by discussing the economic and political underpinnings of the problem. This chapter is organized in four sections. In the first section, the Indian variant of crony capitalism is discussed, followed by a critical review of Indian economic philosophy from 1947 to 2014 and how it bred cronyism. In the third section, we describe the current scenario and where the Indian economy might be headed. Finally, we propose new and emerging economic ideas that may be worth pursuing in the Indian context.