India’s Evolving Experiment with Neoliberalism: A Confluence of Mental Models

Abstract

Since having achieved its independence from the British in 1947, India has continued to adapt its political and economic models to meet the challenges and imperatives posed by an ever-shifting global environment. Beginning with India’s shift from socialism (1947–91), which ushered in a revolution known as “neoliberalism by storm” following its historic currency crisis, this chapter focuses primarily on India’s next evolution, known increasingly as authoritarian neoliberalism and beyond. Appearing to engender antiglobalization populist elements (as evidenced by current prime minister Narendra Modi’s fiat dictates aimed at demonetizing the national currency as well as severing multiple free-trade agreements), this next phase appears to embrace a mercantilist-style, strong-state, command-and-control ethos. This illiberal evolution of “neo-liberalism” is a highly nuanced and complicated model, fraught with paradoxes and contradictions that need to be better explored and explained.