Raju J. Das of Canada’s York University has a new Commentary at JCA’s webpage where he examines India’s neo-liberalism.
In Critical Observations on Neo-liberalism and India’s New Economic Policy (DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2014.1003143), Das “makes a series of critical comments on India’s neo-liberalism expressed in the form of the so-called New Economic Policy.”
As stated in the abstract, Das argues that the New Economic Policy is “a policy of capital, mediated and implemented by the state. Neo-liberalism is a social-spatial project. Neo-liberalism in rural areas (agrarian neo-liberalism) is particularly ruthless. Neo-liberalism is implemented through, and entails, the transformation of space, and thus produces enormous spatial unevenness. Neo-liberalism is also a part of the imperialist project. Given New Economic Policy’s adverse impacts, it has inspired massive resistance from below. Interestingly, in spite of offering some opposition, the left has been, overall, a conduit through which New Economic Policy has worked. The article shows how a critical discussion on neo-liberalism has implications for understanding macro-structural changes in societies such as that of India, which have suffered not only from economic backwardness but also incomplete revolutions. A dialectical view of neo-liberalism and the New Economic Policy connects them both to the democratic and agrarian questions, the national question, and the question of socialism itself.”
