There are no underdeveloped countries, only underanalyzed ones.
Jacques Berque.
India is a country full of paradoxes. There is poverty amidst plenty, squalor side by side beauty, tradition alongside modernity. The most crucial problem that agitates the minds of planners, national policy makers and academicians is the slow rate of economic growth and development in India even after over three decades of Independence.
Understanding is the basic pre-requisite of action. If so, what are the factors which account for the slow economic development of India? Are the inhibiting factors purely economic? Or, can the reason for the underdevelopment of India be traced to the socio-cultural frame work of the country which undergirds the economic life of the people? And if so, to what extent?
These questions started agitating my mind in 1968, after reading an Indian newspaper write-up which referred to the argument that "Hindu culture militates against and impedes economic planning and development in significant ways..." It went on to say: "Such a sweeping judgement calls for more evidence to buttress it than has been forthcoming so far..."1
After the novelty of the juxtaposition of Hinduism and economic development had worn off, I began wondering whether the relationship was sterile or fertile. The theme lay dormant till at Syracuse I had the chance to offer Professor Swerdlow's course in Economic Development which aroused a classical concern with the "aggregate requirement of progress," the lack of which, according to Professor Galbraith, constitutes serious shortcoming in modern discussion on the subject. This concern was legitimized by Meier and Baldwin's Topics for Case Studies for developmental studies which included Role of custom, Role of religion etc. as Sociological Features of economic development meriting inquiry. By the Spring semester of 1969 the subject had crystallized and Professor Swerdlow agreed to guide me in this rather rash venture. Professor Bharati undertook to keep me on the anthropological alert, lest I yield to the temptation of functioning solely within the framework of my intimate prejudices, of which everyone has his own share. Indeed,
The economist is severely handicapped when attempting to assess the power of cultural problems in economic development. His training is too narrow to permit him adequately to investigate a question that goes deep into the territory of psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science and the humanities."
The interdisciplinary nature of the venture has its risks-the writer runs the risk of displeasing both economists and sociologists, the former on account of an alleged vagueness, the latter by making statements, at times, in a jargon peculiar to economics.
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