Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India
September 14, 12:00 PM
Scholarship on neoliberalism has routinely characterized it as an antidemocratic, expert-driven project aimed at insulating markets from politics, devised in the North Atlantic and projected on the rest of the world. Revising this understanding, this talk shows how an Indian economic conservatism emerged and was disseminated in a postcolonial society consistent with the logic of democracy, in conversation with but distinct from mainstream neoliberalism. Twelve years after the British left India, a Swatantra (“Freedom”) Party came to life. It encouraged Indians to break with the Indian National Congress Party, which spearheaded the anticolonial nationalist movement and now dominated Indian democracy. Rejecting Congress’s heavy-industrial developmental state and the accompanying rhetoric of socialism, Swatantra promised “free economy” through its project of opposition politics. As it circulated across various genres, “free economy” took on meanings that varied by region and language, caste and class, and won diverse advocates. These articulations came chiefly from communities in southern and western India as they embraced new forms of entrepreneurial activity. At their core, they connoted anticommunism, unfettered private economic activity, decentralized development, and the defense of private property. Opposition politics encompassed ideas and practice. Swatantra’s leaders imagined a conservative alternative to a progressive dominant party in a two-party system. They communicated ideas and mobilized people around such issues as inflation, taxation, and property. And they made creative use of India’s institutions to bring checks and balances to the political system. Democracy’s persistence in India is uncommon among postcolonial societies. This talk excavates a perspective of how Indians made and understood their own democracy and economy. It broadens our picture of neoliberalism, democracy, and the postcolonial world.
About the Speaker
Aditya Balasubramanian is Senior Lecturer in History at the Australian National University. His research focuses on various aspects of modern South Asian history. His first book, Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), is a history of economic ideas and politics. He has also written about Hindu nationalism and economic development, wartime famine in princely India and the rise of communism, India and the liberal international economic order, and anticorruption in postcolonial South Asia. He is now working on roads and road transport in South Asia, eucalyptus planting in India, and family businesses across South and Southeast Asia.