posted by: Prasad Shetty Jun 16 2009 @ 12:01 pm

The Author Dipankar Gupta, one of India’s principal thinkers on social and economic issues, takes a critical and controversial look at the limits of the Indian success story, knocking down ivory towers and challenging comfortable assumptions in the process.

Imagine a country that is deeply caste ridden, whose politicians are venal, whose middle class is caught in its own narcissism, whose state is not entirely averse to targeting minority groups, whose privileged are quite comfortable with exploitative labor, whose state does not deliver even minimal basic services, whose economists are so besotted with growth that they don’t see how limited it is, whose educational base is narrow and whose public morality does not embody values of modernity.

“The Caged Phoenix” argues through a fine blend of theory and new empirical evidence, that despite the promises of Independence and liberalization India continues to remain caged in backwardness. Why does the phenomenal growth story not translate into development? Why is the much vaunted human-resource capital not taking India towards excellence? How can deprivation and prosperity live so easily side by side?

Could such a country ever sustain growth? If you are to believe Dipankar Gupta’s provocative and loosely opinionated book, the answer is an obvious: NO! Combining scholarship with an easy, engaging style, Dipankar Gupta enters uncharted territories to question why, despite so much talent, human resource and an open society, India is still waiting to fly.

Dipankar tells this story with a combination of anecdotes, and selectively used statistics, in a way that get you to wonder not just whether this growth is sustainable, but how India survives, if at all.

Author : Dipankar Gupta
Publisher : Penguin Books