| As someone incorrigibly curious about the world of books""not just who writes them and why, but how they are made and disseminated""I am often drawn to a series of dictionaries, guides and compendiums in search of a word or pronunciation, a precise fact or concise history. And although there are several excellent specialist guides that cover everything from Indian monuments to music and, more recently, histories that delve into subjects as various Goa, Gandhi and Bahadur Shah Zafar, there has been a yawning gap for a single source book that introduces the non-specialist reader to many of the fierce economic, political and social debates that rage on about modern India in motion. Even if such an ambitious idea was tenable would it be possible to fit so much expert analysis into a single volume? |
| It is and, in fact, has just been accomplished astonishingly well. The Oxford Companion to Economics in India (OUP), edited by Kaushik Basu, weighs in at five kilos and is priced at Rs 2,750 but is worth every naya paisa for its range of subject matter and learning. |
| Basu is professor of economics and international studies at Cornell University and well-known to legions of economists and students around the world. But he is no dry academic lost to the world of arcane theories and statistical indices. He sees economics not in terms of Keynes's prophecy that future generations would have no fear as the world's economic problems would be solved but, on the contrary, as a field of study that has grown so complex and all-encompassing that it impinges more than before on the lives of every Indian, whether policy-maker or citizen, and also those staking a claim on India, as foreign investors or members of the diaspora. |
| How Prof. Basu and his five-member editorial board persuaded 200 specialist contributors""fellow economists, policy-makers, industrialists, professional analysts and researchers""to file entries for the Companion to Economics he tells in his witty and erudite introduction. But the triumph of "chasing truant authors" over two years, editing and updating their contributions, is a labour of love that has produced the most impressive A to Z on information concerning Indian politics, economics and social change that hours spent clicking search engines will not yield. From stock markets to software exports, oil to pharma, FDI to PDS, turn the page alphabetically and you have the wisdom from the acknowledged founts. The Companion's focus is not merely trained on specific industries, trends and micro views. Every now and again it stands back to look at the big picture and fill in the historical details of political and social change. Flip to "H" and you get essays on health indicators, human rights and higher education; "S" has entries on everything from street vendors to sustainable development; "T" will get you up close with the House of the Tatas and, ironically, cheek by jowl with the entry on trade unions. |
| The range of authorship is truly stellar. From Ratan Tata to Amartya Sen, P Chidambaram to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, all are represented but Prof. Basu and his co-editors in the egalitarian spirit of marking tutorials give them space in accordance with what they say rather than their star billing. Nor are they insensible to the dark stories of disparity and despair that stalk the lives of large swathes of an impoverished population. What good is economics if unable to analyse the failures of modern India? There are gruelling entries on poverty in its manifestations""infant mortality, income disparity, child labour, farmers' suicides and unorganised labour. "A huge rise in inequality can create political upheavals, which can in turn spell doom for growth ... even if the disadvantaged are too weak to protest and destablilize the economy," warns Basu in his introduction. |
| Basu has put together a work that is both an extraordinary tract and a treasure trove of information. |
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