Globalisation and Neo-liberal Economic Reforms in India: A Critical Review

The objective of this study is to analyse the impact of neo-liberal economic reforms also known as ‘pro-market’ reforms in India. It is widely believed that India’s growth acceleration has taken place mainly due to changes in the government’s attitudes towards business and export orientation rather than earlier domestic policies. This paper shows that the turnaround growth took place in the early 1980s rather than the early 1990s as portrayed by international financial institutions and media. We find the current discussions overlook other aspects such as inter-sectoral and inter-regional imbalances. The importance of the manufacturing sector is not properly examined, which could play an important role in creating jobs, and its crucial role in employment generation is being underplayed.

This research presents the broad macro parameters of the growth of the Indian economy in both periods, i.e. pre and post reforms period, and also very briefly comparison is made with the colonial period, however, simply looking at the economic growth figures might be misleading. Therefore, we decided to analyse other variables, such as inter-regional and inter-sectoral changes and also look at the issue of poverty during pre and post-reform periods. The author critically examines the issues of foreign direct investment, particularly during the neo-liberal period in India, also focusing on cross region evaluation, drawing out the patterns discernible from available data. The study provides an overview of the on-going debate on the components of Indian-growth and the relative importance of government policies. The study has questioned some assertions concerning neoliberal reforms and growth in India in particular the argument that poverty has been reduced, is problematic.