Liberalization In India Research Articles

American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty – By George E. Tinker

American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty – By George E. Tinker

Success and Failure of Crossbred Cows in India: A Place-Based Approach to Rural Development

Although India's cooperative dairying program is lauded as a model of successful rural development, lack of uniformity in replication of the program across rural India has raised questions about the meanings of success. Differences between dairy cooperatives become especially apparent when crossbred cows are considered, so that the promotion of crossbreds by dairy development agencies has not always resulted in their actual adoption by farmers. This article seeks to explain the mixed reception accorded to crossbred cows by focusing on the link between development and place. By discussing both official discourses and local perspectives, the article enables two kinds of understanding of dairy development. First, the rise and fall of support for crossbred cows within India's national plans suggest that contrasts between official policies and local practices of dairying need to be attentive to the dynamics of both discourses and places. Second, the comparison between two villages—one utilizing crossbred cows and the other water buffaloes as principal dairy animals—shows that evaluations of success or failure cannot be made simply on the basis of adoption or rejection of crossbred cows but requires engagement with place-specific agricultural economies and social relations. Given the liberalization of India's dairy sector, official discourses and material experiences of cooperative dairying become significant for ascertaining future possibilities for small-scale farming and equitable economic growth in rural India.

Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India

The liberalization of India's economy since 1991 has brought with it considerable development of its financial markets and supporting legal institutions. An influential body of economic scholarship asserts that a country's “legal origin”—as a civilian or common law jurisdiction—plays an important part in determining the development of its investor protection regulations, and consequently its financial development. An alternative theory claims that the determinants of investor protection are political, rather than legal. We use the case of India to test these theories. We find little support for the idea that India's legal heritage as a common law country has been influential in speeding the path of regulatory reforms and financial development. Rather, we suggest there are complementarities between (1) India's relative success in services and software; (2) the relative strength of its financial markets for outside equity, as opposed to outside debt; and (3) the relative success of stock market regulation, as opposed to reforms of creditor rights. We conclude that political economy explanations have more traction in explaining the case of India than do theories based on “legal origins.”

Making Miss India Miss World: Constructing Gender, Power and the Nation in Postliberalization India (review)

Reviewed by: Making Miss India Miss World: Constructing Gender, Power and the Nation in Postliberalization India Debarashmi Mitra Susan Dewey. Making Miss India Miss World: Constructing Gender, Power and the Nation in Postliberalization India. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2008. 245 pp. In Making Miss India Miss World, Dewey provides a persuasive account of the complex interconnection between globalization, nation and gender through the detailed analysis of Miss India pageant, particularly in the years following the economic liberalization in India. Dewey’s analysis in this book is drawn on a careful distinction between “beauty as an oppressive and hegemonic concept and beauty as empowering practice” (4) as these seemingly contradictory and yet complimentary performances are enacted within the institution of beauty pageants. Focusing on Miss India pageant as a site of “beauty, power, and class” (6), Dewey examines the ways in which femininity as a cultural performance and a capitalist phenomenon is manifested and reinforced through the interaction between global standards of beauty and national identity. The book’s central argument is that Miss India pageant in post-liberalization era has made available a socially approved space to urban middle and upper-class women, who challenge their identities, negotiate their feminine beauty, and exercise [End Page 1097] their agency to achieve social mobility, although such opportunities only last for a short period of time. The seven chapters in this book present an in-depth and well documented analysis of cultural performance of beauty as an embodiment as well as commodification of national identity and femininity. Organized around three key themes, part one of this book includes two chapters on the central idea of the “power of the gaze.” Part two focuses on “gender,” and part three is organized around the main issue of “globalization.” Dewey brings these three themes together in her analysis by drawing on rich ethnographic data collected through participant observation and several interviews conducted during her field visits to India. The book also includes visual illustrations of the performative nature of beauty as embodied by former Miss India contestants, Miss World, and Miss Universe. In Chapter One, Dewey briefly presents a historical overview of the Miss India pageant and highlights the growing popularity of the pageant in recent years which was especially apparent following the success of a few contestants in winning the coveted Miss World and Miss Universe titles. With her focus on Miss India 2003 pageant, Dewey sheds light on the process through which standards of beauty are created, shaped, and reproduced in defining “what a Miss India should be” (23). This chapter also provides a closer look at the rigors of Miss India training program that transforms young women to beauty queens. Dewey emphasizes that the contestants of Miss India pageant make conscious efforts in creating beautiful bodies with a thorough awareness of cultural performance of beauty and gender identity that conforms to both international standards and established gender norms within Indian national culture. In Chapter Two, Dewey points to the importance of the “power of gaze” and analyzes the influence of cultural performance of beauty as it shapes the lives of contestants. This chapter draws attention to the process in which beauty is cultivated and constantly performed by the contestants in their pursuit to construct and present the “self” as Miss India. Dewey explains the struggle of contestants by analyzing the simultaneous processes of the framing of success as an individual accomplishment and the promotion of predefined objective standards of beauty, which are internalized by the contestants. The chapter also illustrates how Miss India contestants undermine the culturally constructed models of idealized femininity and use the available social networks in achieving success and autonomy. [End Page 1098] Chapter Three continues to discuss the power of the gaze, and looks at the Miss India pageant as a “Foucauldian total institution” (99), as being central to the creation of Miss India. As the contestants participate and navigate through the training program under the observation, control, and supervision of their chaperones, Dewey explores the ways these contestants negotiate identities and realize their agency. Discussing the connection between technological innovation and the growing consumption of beauty products in post-liberalization India, Dewey compellingly argues that...

Do Economic Reforms InfluenceHome-Based Work? Evidence from India

This paper analyzes the factors that influence the conditions under which a woman in India participates as a home-based worker using secondary level data at the micro level. At the macro level, the paper analyzes whether trade and industrial liberalization in India led to an increase in subcontracted work, of the home-based variety. The results show a historically high share of women in home-based work, which implies that female participation in such work was more likely to be determined by their cultural milieu than by the recent liberalization process. Further, while the micro model of social determinants appears to fit the female home-based work equation, the macro model is found to be insignificant. The lower but increasing share of male home-based work and the statistical significance of the macro model as a determinant of such work lead us to conclude that the economic reforms in India had a statistically significant impact on this form of production organization among men.

Reviews: American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life, Loss, Grief and Trauma in the Workplace

Reviews: American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty, End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life, Loss, Grief and Trauma in the Workplace

TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND THE EXTENSIVE MARGIN

ABSTRACTTrade barriers can lead to the disappearance of products and impose huge costs. Allowing for the realistic possibility that imported products are substituted by domestic varieties this paper finds that the cost of protection that allows for disappearance of products, the ‘Romer cost,’ is higher below a tariff threshold. This threshold depends on the substitutability of domestic for foreign products. This is important for developing countries where inferior technology leads to poor substitutability and traditional calculations underestimate the cost. Analysis of new varieties trade after the Indian liberalization supports the findings in the context of a developing country.

American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty

American Indian Liberation: A Theology of Sovereignty

The Diasporic Dimensions of British Caribbean Federation in the Early Twentieth Century

[Second and third pragraph]While much has been written on the significance of British Caribbean activists in various movements associated with black diaspora politics in the twentieth century, particularly their important roles in Pan-African struggles, little has been written on how the various British Caribbean colonies themselves were envisioned among diaspora activists and within the scope of black diaspora politics. Did such Caribbean activists, especially those interested in and connected to diasporic movements beyond the British Caribbean, and their African American and African counterparts forsake the British West Indies as a focus of political engagement for other lands and causes? If not, what was the place of “West Indian liberation” and nation building in the British Caribbean in relation to black diasporic struggles in the early twentieth century?This article address these questions through an examination of how the idea of a united “West Indian nation” (via a federation or closer union) among British Caribbean colonies was envisioned within black diaspora politics from the turn of the twentieth century through the 1920s, and the ways in which racial consciousness and motivations informed conceptualizations of such a nation among black political activists of the British Caribbean and other parts of the diaspora. This study argues that efforts to create a federationin the Anglophone Caribbean were much more than simply imperial or regional nation-building projects. Instead, federation was also a diasporic, black nation-building endeavor intricately connected to notions of racial unity, racial uplift, and black self-determination.

One for the Money, Two for the Show

AbstractThis essay traces the evolution of trends in the historiography on South Asia over the past quarter-century, focusing on the trans-Atlantic axis. The rise and transformation of subaltern studies from the early 1980s, it is argued, posed a major challenge to the institutional organization of South Asian history, leading eventually in turn to the redefinition of a «Cambridge School» quite different from that which had existed in the 1970s. Furthermore, the effects of economic liberalization in India and the growing importance of a South Asian diaspora in the US, have led to an entirely new market situation. The essay is thus a participant-observer’s attempt to relate questions of epistemology to an application of the model of duopoly associated with analysts such as Cournot.

Labor Union Resistance to Economic Liberalization in India: What Can National and State Level Patterns of Protests against Privatization Tell Us?

Abstract This article examines mobilization of the Indian labor movement by using a unique data set on protests against privatization in India during 1991 to 2003. The results demonstrate an intensified labor struggle against economic reforms and significant inter-state variation. The latter is only partially explained by the trade unions' political party affiliation.

Innovative human resource management and corporate performance in the context of economic liberalization in India

The Indian economy was forced to adopt a structural adjustment programme at the beginning of 1991. The structural adjustment programme or liberalization initiated the process of the opening up of an otherwise closed economy of India. Liberalization created a hyper-competitive environment and to respond to this turbulence, Indian organizations adopted innovative changes in their HRM practices. Current research shows that HRM practices are important for enhanced corporate performance but little has been reported on the effect of HRM practices and corporate performance in the context of economic liberalization of India. This study tries to understand the role of innovative HRM practices and specifically questions how HRM practices, such as the role of HR department, recruitment, retraining and redeployment, performance appraisal and compensation, enhance corporate performance during the change process. A multiple-respondent survey of 69 Indian organizations was undertaken to study the impact of innovative HRM practices on firm performance. The survey found that the innovative recruitment and compensation practices have a positive significant relationship with firm performance. It was observed that recruitment, the role of the HR department and compensation practices seem to be significantly changing within the Indian firms in the context of India's economic liberalization. The synergy between innovative HRM practices was not significant in enhancing corporate performance during the liberalization process.

The great partition: the making of India and Pakistan

partition of India in 1947 promised its people both political and religious freedom - through the liberation of India from British rule, and the creation of the Muslim state of Pakistan. In reality the geographical divide effected an even greater schism of the population, benefiting the few at the expense of the very many, exposing huge numbers of the population to desperate and devastating consequences. Thousands of women were raped, at least one million people were killed, and ten- to fifteen-times that number were forced to leave their homes as refugees. It was one of the first, the most bloody, and remains one of the most significant, events of decolonisation in the twentieth century. In The Great Partition, Yasmin Khan examines the context, execution and aftermath of partition, integrating an incisive knowledge of political manoeuvres with a deeply-felt understanding of their fundamental social and cultural consequences. She exposes the obliviousness of the small elite driving division, as well as the majority of activists on both sides, to what partition would entail in practice and its effects on the populace. Its repercussions still resound today. Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of partition, Yasmin Khan's personal account draws together a fresh and considerable body of research, including many new interviews, newspaper extracts and archival sources, to reappraise independence and division and reinforce its catastrophic human cost. Intelligent, terrifying, wise and timely, The Great Partition is a testament to a country and people who were brutally and recklessly ripped apart.

Labour Policy Reform and Labour Market after Economic Liberalization in India

In 1991, Indian government initiated economic reforms as quite revolutionary. The risks of runaway inflation and default on interest payment to foreign creditors persuaded the Government to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank on condition of fiscal and economic reforms. The impact of recent economic changes due to reforms on the labour market reveal a mixed picture. While the pace of employment generation picked up after the initial years of reform, the recent years have witnessed reduction in employment growth. Even the most ardent supporter of liberalization would agree that, regardless of how well a Government manages the transition from a regulated to a liberal economy its immediate impact is bad and unjust. It is bad because it reduces economic welfare and unjust because the costs of adjustment fall disproportionately on the poor. Despite liberalization of trade, industry and finance, no law relating to labour has been amended much less repealed so far. This means that the basic material conditions of labour in India will continue to be determined primarily by the macro-economic processes rather than by worker-specific legislation.

Colonial and Post‐Colonial Elaborations of Avataric Evolutionism

Abstract.Avataric evolutionism is the idea that ancient Hindu myths of Vishnu's ten incarnations foreshadowed Darwinian evolution. In a previous essay I examined the late nineteenth‐century origins of the theory in the works of Keshub Chunder Sen and Madame Blavatsky. Here I consider two major figures in the history of avataric evolutionism in the early twentieth century, N. B. Pavgee, a Marathi Brahmin deeply involved in the question of Aryan origins, and Aurobindo Ghose, political activist turned mystic. Pavgee, unlike Keshub, used avataric evolutionism in expounding his nationalistic goals for an independent India. His rationale was bolstered by the idea that India was the fountainhead of all science and civilization. Aurobindo saw in avataric evolutionism a possible key to understanding the involution and evolution of the supreme spirit in the realm of matter as taught in traditional Vedanta. This material‐spiritual evolution represented for Aurobindo the necessary knowledge for the true liberation of India, transcending purely political independence. Such knowledge he also saw as the means for the spiritual liberation of the whole of humankind. The processes of involution and evolution he claimed were not in conflict with modern science, and Western evolutionary thinking seems to have inspired many of his own evolutionary reflections, even though in the end he rejected the Darwinian transmutation of species. I conclude with an overview and assessment of recent, post‐colonial Hindu assimilations of avataric evolutionism.

Trade Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from India

AbstractWe evaluate empirically the impact of the dramatic 1991 trade liberalization in India on the industry wage structure. The empirical strategy uses variation in industry wage premiums and trade policy across industries and over time. In contrast to most earlier studies on developing countries, we find a strong, negative, and robust relationship between changes in trade policy and changes in industry wage premiums over time. The results are consistent with liberalization‐induced productivity increases at the firm level, which get passed on to industry wages. We also find that trade liberalization has led to decreased wage inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in India. This is consistent with the magnitude of tariff reductions being relatively larger in sectors with a higher proportion of unskilled workers.

The Impact of Economic Liberalization on Employment and Wages in India

This working paper is the output from the first phase of a research project dedicated to how developing countries react when opening to trade and foreign direct investment on employment, income distribution, and poverty. The first phase of the research project is based on international cross-section data. It is an analysis of the Indian labour market due to economic liberalization focusing on employment, unemployment, wages, productivity, and work conditions that are related to trends in productivity. Overall, the effect of economic liberalization in India seems to have been better than in other countries.

Apotheosis or Apparition?: Bombay and the Village in 1990s Women‘s Cinema

This article examines the representation of Bombay in Aruna Raje‘s Rihaee (1988) and Sai Paranjpyes Disha (1990). It has been argued here that in both films, Bombay functions as a narrative anchor to the fictive village, which is depicted as the locus of Indian modernity. Symbolism of the village-city trope is used to reorganise the syntagm of modernity-location-gender in new relations of power and also to present alternative visions of national development within the socio-economic context of 1990s liberalisation in India. The dialectic between city and village in these films emphasises the role of memory and migration in women‘s cinema, and also serves as a means to probing the relationship between gender and films in the postcolonial context.

The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Gender Wage Differentials in India's Manufacturing Sector

As trade liberalization in India has unleashed a new wave of competitive forces in the economy since 1991, firms have faced growing pressure to cut costs in order to continue production. This study addresses the question of whether the increasing competitive forces from India's trade liberalization affected the wages of male and female workers differently. Neoclassical theory implies that costly discrimination against female workers should diminish over time with increased competition (Becker 1971). We incorporate this idea into a theoretical model of competition and industry concentration in which the net impact of international trade on the gender wage gap could be positive or negative depending on the initial size of Becker's discrimination coefficient. Our study tests the theoretical model using repeated cross sections of India's NSSO household survey data merged with trade and production data from 1983 to 2004. We employ OLS and Fixed Effects techniques at the industry level to estimate the relationship between the male-female residual wage gap and measures of domestic concentration and international trade competition. Results indicate that increasing openness to trade is associated with a widening in the wage gap in India's concentrated manufacturing industries. This result is consistent with female workers in India having weak bargaining power and a lower workplace status. They are thus less able to negotiate for favorable working conditions and higher pay, a situation that places them in a vulnerable position as firms compete in the global market place.

Does Globalization Lead to Trickle Down Growth?

This paper tries to assess the impact of globalization on the trickle down of benefits from economic growth to the poor. In the specific case study of Indian liberalization of 1991 the reforms led to an improvement in the elasticity of poverty to per capita income in both urban and rural areas but a decline in the efficiency of growth in bringing about poverty alleviation in rural areas That is, poverty alleviation per constant rupee increase in average affluence actually declined in rural areas.