State, Embourgeoisment, and Market Development in India

Abstract

In this chapter the process of embourgeoisment in India and its contribution to market development is presented. While an incipient capitalist class had already emerged under the British, in post-independent India the state significantly contributed to its further development. The state itself pursued a national capitalist project, which was cloaked under a social-democratic form and circumscribed by the vestiges of non-capitalist social relations. Adhering to the then popular tenets of Keynesianism and structuralism, the government of India attempted to transform the Indian economy through public investments as well as insulating the domestic economy from the forces of global capitalism.