Understanding the Indian Economy from the Post-Reforms of 1991, Volume II

CHAPTER 1

Indian Economy: Nature and Structure

This chapter first explains the nature and anatomy, or structure, of the Indian economy to provide readers with an overview and then moves on to the concept of economic reforms to help understand the nature of changes that accompany economic development.

Nature and Structure of the Indian economy: At the time of India’s independence in 1947 the economy was predominantly agrarian. The majority of the population was engaged in agriculture, and most of those people were very poor, surviving by cropping their own small plots or supplying labor to other farms. Landownership, land rental, and sharecropping rights were complex, involving layers of intermediaries. The structural economic problems inherited ...