HA.E115 - Transforming India and Global Business* *NOT ESTABLISHED*

Faculty
Anthony P. D’Costa

Course Coordinator
Anthony P. D’Costa

Any undergraduate can take this course.

This course is an introduction to contemporary India. In the best traditions of interdisciplinary studies, this course is historically grounded and integrates social science, economics, and business disciplines in a critical manner. Salient dynamics of contemporary Indian political economy, social change, and the rise of Indian business internationally are examined in the context of India’s heterogeneous political and social structures. Indian economic development is seen with multilayered interactions between class, caste, ethnicity, religion, and region. Particular attention is given to the role of the Indian state, especially in terms of economic policy, from intervention to liberalization and reforms and increasingly to active global participation. With this course students will be intellectually better prepared to appreciate the complexities of a transforming modern India and the economic and business opportunities and challenges that arise for both India and the world.

The course will prepare students to understand contemporary India in the following ways:

1. Appreciate the social basis of Indian economic transformation

2. Link Indian politics under parliamentary democracy to social and economic mobility

3. State planning, economic reforms, and Indian style globalization

4. Corporate expansion, market development, entrepreneurship, and outward FDI

The course is designed to prepare students to have a nuanced understanding of transforming India. This means they must know the basics of Indian social structure and changing social institutions, the political framework by which India is governed, the changing policy environment, and its implications for economic development and India’s global engagement. Students will be given basic references to theories and frameworks drawn from a range of disciplines including international business, development studies, economics, politics, and sociology. Cognitively they should know simple economic relationships operating in the context of politics and social change.

The student will be exposed to specific social science theoretical frameworks that shed light on economic and social transformation and corresponding economic and business frameworks that aim to capture commercial developments. The course readings are important introductions to the various topics and will be complemented by the teacher’s two decades of research on India.

There will be a written examination of 10 pages per student. The examination will be prepared outside the classroom turned in after the course lecturing is over. The paper will be based on the analysis of a topic from a list that the teacher will prepare. This topic will be related to the objectives outlined above. A list of topics will be made available to students during the course. Student interest will be also taken into account. The examination will be turned on a specific date during the examination period set by the Study Board.

Students will be encouraged to participate in teams as 10 pages are inadequate to write well-developed paper on India. However, individual projects will be accepted as well with 10 pages as a minimum. Each project team will comprise 2 students, with 10 pages per student. Each student specifies which 10 pages he/she is responsible for and this is used for individual grading.

Students at the HA programme are able to write their bachelor project in connection with this course: Yes

1. Stern, Robert W. 2003, Changing India: Bourgeois Revolution in the Subcontinent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2nd edition) (Stern).

2. D’Costa, A.P. 2005, The Long March to Capitalism: Embougeoisment, Internationalization, and Industrial Transformation in India, Basingstoke Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

3. Damodaran, H. 2008, India’s New Capitalists: Caste, Business, and Industry in a Modern Nation, Basingstoke Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Recommended Newspapers/Magazines:

The Statesman, India Today, Business India, Economic and Political Weekly, the Economist, Business Week, the New York Times, Frontline, The Hindu Businessline, Economic Times of India, Times of India.

Other Readings:

D.L. Sheth: “Society” in Bouton, Marshall and Oldenberg, Philip (editors) 1999, India Briefing: A Transformative Fifty Years, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe and Asia Society (pp. 91-120).

Yogendra Yadav “Politics” (pp. 3-38) in Bouton, Marshall and Oldenberg, Philip (editors) 1999, India Briefing: A Transformative Fifty Years, Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe and Asia Society.

Dhume, “From Bangalore to Silicon Valley and Back” in Ayres, Alyssa and Oldenburg, Philip (eds.) 2002, India Briefing: Quickening the Pace of Change, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (pp. 91-120).

D’Costa, A.P. 2003, Uneven and Combined Development: Understanding India’s Software Exports, World Development, 31 (1), 211-226.

Mukherji, J. “The Indian Economy” in Ayres, Alyssa and Oldenburg, Philip (eds.) 2002, India Briefing: Quickening the Pace of Change, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (pp. 55-90).

Basu, K. 2004, The Indian Economy: Up to 1991 and Since, in Basu, K (ed.) 2004, india’s Emerging Economy: Performance and Prospects in the 1990s and Beyond, pp. 1-31