This book describes and analyzes the transformation of Indian economy taking into account historical changes and present dynamics of the rural-urban nexus. India has recently experienced a period as a high-performing economy, with the great improvement of indices of human development, including literacy rates, life expectancy, child mortality rates and others. In contrast to this bright outlook, features such as the retarded growth of women’s average height, the noticeable gap between male and female population, the overwhelming proportion of informal employment in the manufacturing sector, or increasing pollution overshadow India’s future, in some cases pose a threat to lifestyle and environment. Examining the rural–urban nexus where the new transformative dynamics of Indian socio-economy is most conspicuous, the contributors to this book shed light on the actual changes taking place at the bottom of Indian society through regional comparisons and spatial differentiation. The book offers unique perspectives on the topic produced mostly by Japanese scholars, including analysis of original data, that have hitherto been unavailable and inaccessible to an international audience. As the first book published on the rural–urban nexus in India, this book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian History, Economics, Politics, Geography, Sociology and Anthropology, Development Studies and Economic History.

This book describes and analyzes the transformation of Indian economy taking into account historical changes and present dynamics of the rural-urban nexus. India has recently experienced a period as a high-performing economy, with the great improvement of indices of human development, including literacy rates, life expectancy, child mortality rates and others. In contrast to this bright outlook, features such as the retarded growth of women’s average height, the noticeable gap between male and female population, the overwhelming proportion of informal employment in the manufacturing sector, or increasing pollution overshadow India’s future, in some cases pose a threat to lifestyle and environment. Examining the rural–urban nexus where the new transformative dynamics of Indian socio-economy is most conspicuous, the contributors to this book shed light on the actual changes taking place at the bottom of Indian society through regional comparisons and spatial differentiation. The book offers unique perspectives on the topic produced mostly by Japanese scholars, including analysis of original data, that have hitherto been unavailable and inaccessible to an international audience. As the first book published on the rural–urban nexus in India, this book will be of interest to researchers studying South Asian History, Economics, Politics, Geography, Sociology and Anthropology, Development Studies and Economic History.

This book investigates the roots of rapid economic growth of India in recent decades, by exploring historical processes from the late colonial period. Based upon decades-long archival and field research, this book deals with the period from the late nineteenth century to 2013 and offers an integral viewpoint of the economic history of India. While critiquing the conventional understanding that links recent economic growth only with the development of high-tech, export-oriented service sectors under the liberalised economy, the book suggests deeper and wider roots of development that had a cumulative effect in three stages. First, the agrarian development and rural socio-economic changes from the end of the nineteenth century. Second, the state-led import-substitution industrialisation since 1950 that established the industrial foundations for future economic growth. Third, the economic reforms since 1991 that helped technology-intensive industries find new markets with improved quality of production. For the first time available in English, this book by the late Professor Haruka Yanagisawa, who was a leading figure in the South Asia studies collective in Japan, is an important contribution to the academic tradition of economic history of India. It will be of interest to researchers in the field of social and economic history, sociology, anthropology and economies of South Asia.

This book examines the multi-layered aspects and the complexities of inclusive development in South Asia based on recent data and using innovative methodology. The book offers an analysis of the existing ground realities in terms of economic and inclusive development, presenting relevant discussion and findings. It discusses lower castes, tribes, religious/ethnic minorities, and other socially vulnerable people, as well as gender, rural–urban, and educational disparities in South Asia, and highlights that all these issues are interrelated. Structured in two parts—Spatial Dimensions, Labour, and Migration, and Social Dimensions and Beyond Inclusion—the chapters present emerging new concepts related to socio-economic and inclusive development and use effective and valid methods and methodology covering the ground realities-based information and secondary data-based analysis. Evaluating the extent to which inclusive development has been realised in South Asia, the contributors explore a new approach towards the concept of ‘inclusiveness’ by drawing on the experiences of the diverse societies in South Asia. An immensely useful contribution to the analysis of different economic and social issues in different countries in South Asia, focusing on inclusivity, this book will be of interest to researchers working on South Asian Politics and Development Economics.

​This volume decentres the view of urbanisation in India from large agglomerations towards smaller urban settlements. It presents the outcomes of original research conducted over three years on subaltern processes of urbanization. The volume is organised in four sections. A first one deals with urbanisation dynamics and systems of cities with chapters on the new census towns, demographic and economic trajectories of cities and employment transformation. The interrelations of land transformation, social and cultural changes form the topic of the “land, society, belonging” section based on ethnographic work in various parts of India (Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu). A third section focuses on public policies, governance and urban services with a set of macro-analysis based papers and specific case studies. Understanding the nature of production and innovation in non-metropolitan contexts closes this volume. Finally, though focused on India, this research raises larger questions with regard to the study of urbanisation and development worldwide.

Economic corridors—ambitious infrastructural development projects that newly liberalizing countries in Asia and Africa are undertaking—are dramatically redefining the shape of urbanization. Spanning multiple cities and croplands, these corridors connect metropolises via high-speed superhighways in an effort to make certain strategic regions attractive destinations for private investment. As policy makers search for decentralized and market-oriented means for the transfer of land from agrarian constituencies to infrastructural promoters and urban developers, the reallocation of property control is erupting into volatile land-based social conflicts. In Shareholder Cities, Sai Balakrishnan argues that some of India's most decisive conflicts over its urban future will unfold in the regions along the new economic corridors where electorally strong agrarian propertied classes directly encounter financially powerful incoming urban firms. Balakrishnan focuses on the first economic corridor, the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, and the construction of three new cities along it. The book derives its title from a current mode of resolving agrarian-urban conflicts in which agrarian landowners are being transformed into shareholders in the corridor cities, and the distributional implications of these new land transformations. Shifting the focus of the study of India's contemporary urbanization away from megacities to these in-between corridor regions, Balakrishnan explores the production of uneven urban development that unsettles older histories of agrarian capitalism and the emergence of agrarian propertied classes as protagonists in the making of urban real estate markets. Shareholder Cities highlights the possibilities for a democratic politics of inclusion in which agrarian-urban encounters can create opportunities for previously excluded groups to stake new claims for themselves in the corridor regions.

Through a close examination of India's policies, economic system, social systems and politics, this study explores the numerous perspectives and debates on India's urbanization. The authors link contemporary urban issues with emerging challenges associated with policies and city management.