India's journey has been distinctively "precocious" in comparative terms. It opted for democracy before development and social change, promoted high-skilled services before and over low-skilled manufacturing, and chose a globalization that favored exports of talented people and short-changed the poor. The socialist state became an inefficient capitalist one before providing the public goods of physical infrastructure and human capital. The outcomes have been surprising, with the country achieving high-skilled services success and creating and sustaining democracy, albeit flawed, and maintaining a modicum of order. As the world gets radically upended, India's development odyssey is at a critical juncture.
A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India's Development Odyssey traces how one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world uniquely and daringly attempted four concurrent transformations—building a state, creating an economy, changing society, and forging a sense of nationhood—under conditions of universal suffrage.
Participating in the discussion are the book's coauthors, Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian, as well as Simon Johnson, Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Nobel laureate in economic sciences.
MODERATOR
Caroline Atkinson
Senior Global Strategist, RockCreek; Former Deputy National Security Adviser, International Economics, Obama Administration
PRESENTERS
Simon Johnson
Ronald A. Kurtz (1954) Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management; Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences
Devesh Kapur
Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
Arvind Subramanian
Senior Fellow, PIIE