A Distinctive Indian Political Economy: New Concepts and a Synthesizing Framework
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023016665554 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium on Rudolphs |
A Distinctive Indian Political Economy:
New Concepts and a Synthesizing
Framework
Aseema Sinha1
Abstract
This article discusses Rudolphs’ contribution to the study of India’s political economy. Taking off from
the ideas they presented in their work, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, the article argues that certain concepts,
such as Bullock capitalists, demand-led growth, involuted pluralism, federal market economy and state
as a third actor, continue to be critical in understanding India. Through these conceptual innovations,
Rudolph and Rudolph not only analyzed India at a given moment but also shaped the larger agenda of
debates over India’s political economy.
Keywords
Political economy, Indian state, Rudolphs, In Pursuit of Lakshmi, bullock capitalists, command economy
If one had to characterize Rudolph and Rudolph’s intellectual lineage, it would be as political sociologists.
They use both ‘class concepts and state concepts’ (1987, p. 396) and deploy many sociological categories
especially from the Weberian tradition. Their debts to Max Weber are both methodological and
substantive. Like Max Weber, they prioritized historical knowledge and linked political and social facts.
They challenged modernization theory in their work on caste and democracy. Despite following in the
wake of a sociological tradition, their book In Pursuit of Lakshmi (1987) is considered to be one of their
foundational contributions to Indian political economy. But, they were not commonplace political
economists. Their book In Pursuit of Lakshmi spends some time outlining ‘state-formation,’ elaborating
a Weberian analysis of the Indian state. It acknowledges its debt to Marx and class concepts but does so
in a manner that recognizes the value of hybrid social categories, such as ‘bullock capitalists.’ They saw
‘political economy’ not only as a mere articulation of economic interests but also how politics, policy
and state-ness could transform social groups and interests into powerful cleavages and ‘demand groups.’
States could also render some economic cleavages less politically active. One reason it is difficult to
pigeonhole the Rudolphs is that many of the elements of their large body of work (caste, Gandhi and
1 Wagener Chair in South Asian Politics and George R. Roberts Fellow and Associate Professor, Department of Government,
Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA.
Symposium on Rudolphs: II
Studies in Indian Politics
4(2) 266–273
© 2016 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023016665554
http://inp.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Aseema Sinha, Wagener Chair in South Asian Politics and George R. Roberts Fellow and Associate Professor,
Department of Government, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA 91766, USA.
E-mail: aseema.sinha@cmc.edu
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