UNDERSTANDING INDIA
A Centre for Public Policy Elective
Professor Rajeev Gowda
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
gowda@iimb.ernet.in; +91-98451-62171
A 20 session elective for EPGP, PGSEM and Exchange Students. PGP Students may not enrol for
this course as significant portions of the content overlap with Business Government & Society.
OVERVIEW
At the dawn of the 21st century, India is capturing the world’s imagination once again. This
course aims to help students understand where India is today, how she got here, and where
she is headed. It will explore the complexities and interactions between India’s politics,
economy and society. It will delve deep into diverse sectors of the Indian economy and also
examine various policy challenges facing the country. It will also include field visits and
interactions with business and other leaders. Overall, this course will enable students to assess
India’s current and future prospects and to engage in business interactions with India building
on meaningful insights and understanding.
METHODOLOGY
Lectures and class discussions
Case studies
Field visits
Guest speakers
EVALUATION:
10% Film or Book Review on India-related Theme
50% Mid-term and Final Examination
40% Group Project
ATTENDANCE POLICY
A minimum of 75% of the sessions must be attended by the student, failing which he/she will
face the prospect of a grade drop.
SESSIONS AND READINGS
1. The Indian State
 Shashi Tharoor “From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond: Democracy and Identity in
Today’s India”, Center for the Advanced Study of India, Occasional Paper Number 21,
July2004
 Rajeev Gowda and E Sridharan. “Parties and the Party System: 1947-2006.” In State of
India's Democracy, Larry Diamond, Sumit Ganguly, and Marc Plattner (editors), Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2007.
2. India’s Culture and Society
 Amartya Sen, “Democracy and Secularism in India”[In Kaushik Basu (ed.) India’s Emerging
Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and Beyond, Oxford University Press,
2004]
 Pratap Bhanu Mehta “Affirmation without Reservation” Economic & Political Weekly July 3,
2004.
 Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande “Redesigning Affirmative Action” Economic and
Political Weekly
 MN Srinivas “Pangs of Change” Frontline, Vol. 14: No. 16 : Aug. 9-22, 1997. Available at:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1416/14160670.htm
 Madhu Kishwar “Traditional Female Moral Exemplars in India”. Article reprinted with
permission of the Association for Asian Studies, Inc., publisher of Education About Asia
(EAA). Available at:
http://www.infinityfoundation.com/mandala/s_es/s_es_kishw_EAA.htm
 Cyrus Guzder “Is Secularism Good for Business.” Seminar 2002 Available at:
http://www.india-seminar.com/2002/513/513%20cyrus%20guzder.htm
3-4. The Indian Economy
 Barbara Harriss-White “India’s Informal Economy: Facing the Twenty-First Century” [In
Kaushik Basu (ed.) India’s Emerging Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and
Beyond, Oxford University Press, 2004]
 Sunil Bharti Mittal “India’s New Entrepreneurial Classes: The High Growth Economy and
Why it is Sustainable”, Center for the Advanced Study of India, Occasional Paper Number
25, February 2006
 Arvind Panagariya, “Introduction,” in India: The Emerging Giant, Oxford University Press,
2008.
 Harish Damodaran, “Conclusion,” in India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in
a Modern Nation, Permanent Black, 2008.
 Gurcharan Das “The India Model” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2006
 Tushar Poddar and Eva Yi: India’s Rising Growth Potential. Chapter 1 in the Goldman Sachs
Report, BRICs and Beyond, 2007.
 Adil Zainulbhai: Securing India’s Place in the Global Economy. McKinsey Quarterly, 2007.
5. India’s Institutional Framework
 O P Agrawal and T V Somanathan “Public Policy Making In India: Issues and Remedies”,
February 2005, Available at:
www.cprindia.org/admin/paper/Public_Policy_Making_in_India_14205_TV_SOMANATHAN.
pdf
 Chiranjib Sen and Anil Suraj “The Role of the Legal Process in the Redesign of Indian
Government-Business Relations,” Center on Development, Democracy and Rule of Law,
Stanford University, 2009, Available at: http://iisdb.stanford.edu/pubs/22692/No_102_SenSuraj_Legal_Process_India_91909.pdf
6. Civil Society and People’s Activism
 Harsh Mander and Abha Singhal Joshi, “The Movement for Right to Information in India:
People’s Power for the Control of Corruption,” Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,
1999. Only pages 1-9.
 Arundhati Roy, “Public Power in the Age of Empire,” Address to the 99th annual meeting of
the American Sociological Association, 2004.
 Neera Chandhoke, “Whatever Has Happened to Civil Society?” Economic and Political
Weekly, June 9, 2012.
7. Agrarian Crisis and the Rural Economy
 P. Sainath, Everybody Loves a Good Drought, Penguin University Press, 1996, p. 317-324.
 K. C. Suri, “Political Economy of Agrarian Distress,” Economic and Political Weekly, April 22,
2006, 1523:1529.
 Arvind Panagariya, “Modernizing Agriculture,” in India: The Emerging Giant, Oxford
University Press, 2008.
 Knowledge@Wharton interview with M. Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank.
8-9 India and the Environment
– Selected chapters from Raphaelle Moor and Rajeev Gowda (eds), India at Risk, Oxford
University Press India, forthcoming 2012.
– Selected chapters from Aseem Srivastava and Ashish Kothari, Churning the Earth: The
Making of Global India, Penguin, 2012.
10. Innovation and India
 Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Excerpts from From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation, 2010.
 C.K. Prahalad & Allen Hammond “Serving the World’s Poor, Profitably” Harvard Business
Review September 2002.
11. Information Technology and the Knowledge Economy
– Sourav Mukherji, Complementary and continuous innovation: case of the Indian software
industry, Journal of the Academy of Business and Economics, March 2004
– C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan, ‘Information Technology Professionals and the NewRich Middle Class in Chennai (Madras)’, Modern Asian Studies, 2007.
12. Media and Entertainment in India
–
–
–
Mukul Sharma, Media and Governance, Seminar 2002. Available at: http://www.indiaseminar.com/2002/514/514%20mukul%20sharma.htm
Siddharth Varadarajan “Caste matters in the Indian media”, The Hindu, 3 June 2006.
Available at: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/06/03/stories/2006060301841000.htm
India Knowledge@Wharton. May 1, 2008. India's Entertainment Industry Faces a 'C'
Change: Consolidation, Corporatization and Convergence
13. The Changing Indian Consumer
– Rama Bijapurkar, We are like that only - Understanding the Logic of Consumer India,
Penguin 2009
– Santosh Desai, Mother Pious Lady, 2010
14. India on the Global Stage
 Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet S. Pardesi “Explaining Sixty Years of India’s Foreign Policy,”
India Review, 8:1, 4-19, 2009.
 Harsh Pant “Indian Foreign and Security Policy: Beyond Nuclear Weapons,” Brown Journal
of World Affairs, Spring/Summer 2009, Vol. XV, Issue II
 Sunil Khilnani: “India as a Bridging Power.” In India as a New Global Leader, Foreign Policy
Centre, UK, 2005.
15. India and China
 Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna, “Can India Overtake China?” Foreign Policy, July-August
2003.
 Q&A with Tarun Khanna, “Billions of Entrepreneurs in China and India”: HBS Working
Knowledge, Jan 28, 2008. Available at: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5766.html
GUEST LECTURES (to be confirmed)
16. Negotiating with Indians: Prof. Abhoy Ojha
17. Indian Philosophy: Prof. Manohar Reddy
18-19. Guest speakers as desired by the class
20. Student Presentations of Group Projects