The Dravidian Model: Interpreting the Political Economy of Tamil Nadu

This book adds to the growing literature on dynamics of regional development in the global South by mapping the politics and processes contributing to the distinct developmental trajectory of Tamil Nadu, southern India. Using a novel interpretive framework and drawing upon fresh data and literature, it seeks to explain the social and economic development of the state in terms of populist mobilization against caste-based inequalities. Dominant policy narratives on inclusive growth assume a sequential logic whereby returns to growth are used to invest in socially inclusive policies. By focusing more on redistribution of access to opportunities in the modern economy, Tamil Nadu has sustained a relatively more inclusive and dynamic growth process. Democratization of economic opportunities has made such broad-based growth possible even as interventions in social sectors reinforce the former. The book thus also speaks to the nascent literature on the relationship between the logic of modernisation and status based inequalities in the global South.

• Contributes to conceptualization of social justice within caste society
• Shows how addressing status-based inequality can generate social and economic development in the global South
• Utilises fresh secondary data and literature to establish the links between policy processes and outcomes in Tamil Nadu

 

Author Briefs

Kalaiyarasan

Dr Kalaiyarasan is a Fulbright-Nehru post-doctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs in Brown University and an Assistant Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. He holds a Ph.D. in Development Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His academic interest lies in the intersection of caste and economic processes in India. While his doctoral thesis explored the differences in aggregate outcomes in sub-national states in India and how caste based social mobilization weakened social hierarchy and made economic growth inclusive in Tamil Nadu, his works in collaboration with Prof. Christophe Jaffrelot has explored the relationship between economic processes and changing caste realities in India. He has co-edited Rethinking Social Justice (Orient BlackSwan, 2020).

Vijayabaskar

Dr Vijayabaskar is a Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. His research centers on political economy of development with a focus on labour and land markets, rural-urban linkages, transformations and their intersections with policy-making. In addition to publishing in numerous scholarly journals and media outlets, he has co-edited monographs including Rethinking Social Justice (Orient Blackswan 2020), Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban India, (Routledge 2012) and ICTs and Indian Social Development: Diffusion, Governance, Poverty (Sage 2008). He has been a Visiting Professor at École des haute sétudesen sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, a visiting Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and has taught at the IIT Madras. He is on the editorial advisory board of Oxford Development Studies and South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal (SAMAJ). He holds a PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

 

Chair

Louise Tillin

Dr Louise Tillin is currently Director, King’s India Institute and Reader in Politics. She is also the programme director of the MSc Global Affairs. Louise’s research interests span federalism, democracy and territorial politics in India, and the history and politics of social policy design and implementation. Louise is a regular commentator on Indian politics in UK, Indian and international media. She is an editor of the journal Regional and Federal Studies, and an editorial board member of Pacific Affairs.

Discussant

Judith Heyer

Dr Judith Heyer was formerly a Tutorial Fellow of Somerville College, and Lecturer in the Department of Economics, at Oxford University, before which she held posts at Nairobi University’s Institute for Development Studies, and Economics Department. She is now a Fellow Emeritus of Somerville College, Oxford. A specialist in rural development and in micro-economics, she has written and edited a number of books on rural and agricultural development, and political economy in India, Kenya and Africa.