Why the cult of the entrepreneur will not save India / ECONOMY
TODAY, THE ENTREPRENEUR is omnipresent in a way unprecedented in history. Her image is splashed across magazine covers, politicians are always concerned with “promoting entrepreneurship,” even left-wing talking heads, who decades ago were obsessed with class injustice, concede that nothing must be done to restrict the “dynamism” of the entrepreneur.
And why not? The entrepreneur is an inspiration, because she can, sometimes, escape from the baggage of caste and hierarchy that still grips much of India. She is comforting because, by virtue of her success, she restores a semblance of meritocracy to an otherwise unfair world. She convinces the intellectual establishment that its agenda of a state perpetually in retreat from economic life is a workable one.
The rise of the entrepreneur is, in many ways, directly related to the ascent of the market as the most important institution for organising human material life, both nationally and globally. In India, particularly, the entrepreneur’s prestige in the popular imagination has followed from the success of the 1991 liberalising reforms. Through privatisation, trade liberalisation and the dismantling of the “licence raj,” these reforms enabled a consistent boom in certain sectors of the Indian economy. Real estate, finance and the information-technology sector grew rapidly even as manufacturing faced relative stagnation. Authors and public intellectuals such as Gurcharan Das, Patrick French and Arvind Panagariya popularised the narrative that these reforms had ushered in economic prosperity. They celebrated the virtues of the market in books and opinion editorials, while noting the vibrancy of the entrepreneur, who formed the core of the liberalised economy.
Denne historien er fra April 2017-utgaven av The Caravan.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 2017-utgaven av The Caravan.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Mob Mentality
How the Modi government fuels a dangerous vigilantism
RIP TIDES
Shahidul Alam’s exploration of Bangladeshi photography and activism
Trickle-down Effect
Nepal–India tensions have advanced from the diplomatic level to the public sphere
Editor's Pick
ON 23 SEPTEMBER 1950, the diplomat Ralph Bunche, seen here addressing the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The first black Nobel laureate, Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in ending the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Shades of The Grey
A Pune bakery rejects the rigid binaries of everyday life / Gender
Scorched Hearths
A photographer-nurse recalls the Delhi violence
Licence to Kill
A photojournalist’s account of documenting the Delhi violence
CRIME AND PREJUDICE
The BJP and Delhi Police’s hand in the Delhi violence
Bled Dry
How India exploits health workers
The Bookshelf: The Man Who Learnt To Fly But Could Not Land
This 2013 novel, newly translated, follows the trajectory of its protagonist, KTN Kottoor.