Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Adviser of India, and Devesh Kapur, Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, have co-authored a landmark work, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey. Scheduled for release on October 24, the book is a comprehensive exploration of India’s post-independence socio-economic and political journey. This rare collaboration between a political scientist and an economist offers readers a nuanced and multidimensional understanding of India’s development story.

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Four Transformations of a Nation

The central thesis of the book is that India’s post-independence trajectory cannot be fully understood through either economics or politics alone. Subramanian and Kapur argue that India undertook four simultaneous, monumental transformations:

1. Building a state – Constructing the machinery of governance capable of managing a vast, diverse, and newly independent nation.
2. Forging a sense of nationhood – Uniting a population divided by language, religion, caste, and region into a cohesive national identity.
3. Transforming society – Promoting social reforms, education, and inclusion in a deeply hierarchical society.
4. Creating a market economy – Designing economic structures, institutions, and policies to support growth under conditions of universal suffrage.

The authors’ interdisciplinary approach allows them to weave together political, economic, and social threads, highlighting the interdependence of these transformations and the immense challenges India faced.

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Mai-Baap Sarkar: India’s Default Ideology

One of the most striking contributions of the book is its analysis of India’s pervasive statist mentality, captured in the term mai-baap sarkar or mai-baapism. According to Subramanian and Kapur, India’s citizens and policymakers alike have long viewed the State as both provider and protector—a parental figure that offers refuge, welfare, and guidance, even as it often underperforms or mismanages resources.

This ideology, the authors argue, transcends political lines, affecting the Left, Right, and centre alike. From the Licence Raj to the management of religious institutions, mai-baapism has shaped governance, constrained private initiative, and disincentivized civil society participation. By making the State the locus of all change, it stifled entrepreneurship, slowed the delivery of public goods, and created a welfare-dependent populace, highlighting both the power and the paradoxes of India’s developmental model.

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Challenging Conventional Wisdom

Subramanian and Kapur do not shy away from challenging entrenched debates in India’s political economy. They question the binary framework of Bhagwati versus Sen, arguing instead that India’s most productive era resulted from a combination of pro-market growth and human development initiatives.

The authors critically examine pre-reform economic policies, elite-driven decision-making, and the inability of political parties—across ideologies—to implement meaningful reforms in institutions such as the police, judiciary, and urban local governance. They highlight how electoral politics often hindered long-term development, especially in northern India, where caste-based politics emerged before strong social movements could support public goods delivery.

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Pathologies, Paradoxes, and Lessons

The book’s later chapters delve into India’s ongoing pathologies and paradoxes. These include:

• Elite-driven policy-making that often ignores grassroots needs.
• Welfare over productivity, creating dependency on the State rather than fostering income-generating opportunities.
• Inconsistent institutional development, where inputs such as laws, personnel, and budgets are emphasized over measurable outcomes.

Subramanian and Kapur underscore the importance of learning from both successes and failures. Understanding the past, they argue, is crucial for shaping future policies and avoiding repeated mistakes, particularly in a country as complex and diverse as India.

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A Pragmatic Vision for the Future

While the book provides a sweeping historical and analytical narrative, it deliberately avoids grandiose prescriptions. The authors emphasize a pragmatic “Hippocratic Oath” approach: do no harm, strengthen foundations, and focus on incremental, context-sensitive reforms. They argue that major reforms often occur only during crises, highlighting the limits of policy prescription in a complex democracy.

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Verdict

A Sixth of Humanity is a masterful, meticulously researched, and engaging account of India’s post-independence development journey. Subramanian and Kapur’s interdisciplinary approach, combined with their candid analysis and compelling storytelling, makes the book essential reading for scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in India’s past, present, and future. By tracing India’s unique odyssey of simultaneous political, social, and economic transformation, the authors provide not only a history of achievement but also a framework for understanding its persistent challenges.

Rating: 5/5

A Sixth of Humanity is poised to become the definitive work on India’s development, akin to how Ramachandra Guha’s India After Gandhi mapped its political history. For anyone seeking to grasp the complexities of governing, reforming, and sustaining a nation of a sixth of the world’s population, this book is indispensable.