The great churning

Book review of A New Idea of India: Individual Rights in a Civilisational State

Anybody who has read B R Shenoy’s work would fiercely contest the argument there was no right-wing economic literature in India. What the reader would concede is that, despite their verity, these works have rarely been debated in academia. Shenoy, for instance, cavilled at the premise of the five year plans, which converted a savings shortage from a constraint to an additional objective, warning about the imminent inflation potential of the switch. His warning proved accurate and possibly because of it, his academic legacy was forgotten.

Subsequent generations of students heeded the risk of oblivion. If they were inclined to be