FOR NEARLY FOUR decades therehave been only a handful of se-rious scholarly studies of what makes the economy of the world's secondmost populous country tick. And no won-der, since there wasn't much ticking goingon. Despite promises of reasonably enlight-ened economic leadership after its 1947 in-dependence from British rule, by the 1960sIndia had become one of the world's worsteconomic performers—an infuriatingly in-ward-looking, impoverished, protectionistbasket case. After such leading economictheorists as Jagdish Bhagwati warned inthe early 1970s that India's economy washeaded south, there really wasn't muchmore to add.
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