Reviving this thread.
Sorry I was away* and couldn't respond earlier; but you've raised some very good points. First, I completely agree with you in regards to India's unique achievement in pioneering this model of an increasingly liberalizing market economy in the backdrop of a liberal democracy.
However, I disagree with you in deeming Das' article relevant now. Das has put forth many compelling arguments in India Unbound, however this projection was faulty. He wrote this essay when consumed by the ecstasy of the percieved boundless potential of the IT revolution in the post Y2K euphoria. Later experiences however have clearly indicated that the impact of the IT revolution (while impressive in empirical numbers) has not been able to- and is unlikely to make a comprehensive impact upon the Indian society at large in its current form.
The fact of the matter is that India, like China, is primarily a peasant society of gargantuan proportions. It is unrealistic to expect a meaningful trickle down effect from an information revolution when a large chunk of the masses live in destitution, and where the divide between them and the urban elite is growing at warp speed. This supposed trickle down is all the more improbable in a society that is notoriously hierarchical, especially when it comes to information sharing.
I believe that the only real equalizer here can be provided by a genuine industrial revolution. I think this topic deserves its own thread so that it can be discussed and debated in more detail.
*My post above is undoubtedly influenced by my recent travels to crisis stricken regions of eastern Maharashtra and Northern Karnataka. This experience has given me a new perspective on this topic, and I really hope there can be more productive discussions about it on DFI
Read the article carefully: It alludes to the notion of comparative advantage, but very explicitly states that that 'comparative advantage' is not just service.
He makes use of the phrase" [w]ith competitive advantages in agriculture and the new knowledge economy, it may in the end be all right for India to skip much of the industrial revolution"- an assertion with which I personally don' agree. However, there is no doubt, that with the IT-revolution, it has allowed us to subvert some of the more (painful) stages, or at the very least the extent of participation in, of economic growth in a Modernization theory context, particularly with the (democratically) contention issues of foreign investment in local product markets and sale, foreign involvement in exploitation of natural resources and the issue of state-centre revenue distribution and which sectors to allow participation in (unlike the Chinese system, which is centrist in nature, and crucially
dictated the sectors of foreign involvement to the provinces in individually negotiated fiscal contracts, retention rates and prohibitions on participation in industries they deemed 'importunate' and incentives for those they deemed 'worthy'; in contrast to a federated structure where provinces have a vast degree greater of bargaining power, and in which revenue-sharing is fiscally governed by the constitution, making the varying nature and extent of foreign participation in domestic industries subject to the 'political whims' and compunctions of states, rather than to a pre-determined, set agenda for economic development- you can imagine the issues it would cause with inter-province income disparities and with lobbies from nascent industries gunning for their own growth). I hate to sell my self like this, but I wrote an essay on this a while back, available here:
http://www.defenceforum.in/forum/sh...eractions-In-post-1980-Chinese-Fiscal-Reforms
'Course, today we're realizing that some amount of this is inevitable- and have invited foreign players to tap into domestic industry markets- but even these have on occasion caused tremendous paroxysms - as the issue of Posco's involvement in Orissa's iron mines rightly illustrates. Imagine the conflagration if we had adopted the approach of opening domestic industry markets to Posco's country-wide at the outset!
The IT revolution has had a greater trickle-down effect than you would imagine. Not directly, since the impact of capital-labour substitution has attenuated the degree of 'potential' (however that is understood) poverty-reduction. But indirectly. The IT-industry has led to a significant burgeoning in incomes for a marginal substratum of society, which tend to be typically young, high-powered, high-consuming, just-outta-college workers, whose tastes are easily manipulated to purchasing more sophisticated electronics, luxury and branded goods, and increased spending directly facilitates the 'upper-end' of the retail industry. This facilitation has led to a proliferation of 'upper-end' retail outlets, which benefit the mainstream retail industry. The IT revolution is also not just confined to the computer industry, it includes banking, business process outsourcing, the healthcare industry, et al. The healthcare revolution has driven a revolution in the pharma industry, and likewise business process outsourcing has facilitated a range of consumer services from accounting to tourism. Because we are a primarily consumption-driven economy, the impact of this accretion on the mainstream retail industry is manifold and more pronounced. Which in turn have led to an expansion of mom-and-pop stores, a proliferation of retail outlets and an increase in wholesale stores, which indirectly benefit the agriculture and manufacturing industries- manufacturing in automotives and automotive parts is just one result in this long chain of consequential impacts.
It is also useful to note, for those who have studied pre-modern European economic history, that the industrial revolution in Britain began with a "first age of modern consumerism" that preceded it. Perhaps, we are adopting a more historically-coherent strategy after all.
See the following for example:
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/industrial/stearns.html