This chapter focuses on two major axes of social identity in India: caste and tribe. It provides an overview of the two categories, in particular focusing on how the categories are identified and measured in national-level macro data. It summarizes key features of contemporary economic disparities along these two dimensions. The chapter discusses the overlap between caste/tribal status and religion and provides a summary overview of the racial theory of caste. Tribe as a category has specific dimensions that are distinct from the caste system. The chapter reviews these and moves on to a discussion of the intersection of caste/tribe category with sex. The evidence in the chapter suggests that caste and tribe continue to define socio-economic status in contemporary India. India’s affirmative-action policies addressing caste, tribe and gender disparities are necessary, but not sufficient, to lower the influence of the lottery of birth on individual outcomes.

This chapter describes the history of the industrial labour force as it emerged in South Asia, mostly in current India, since the middle of the nineteenth century. New export-oriented industries created employment for many workers, mostly migrants from often remote rural areas, and mostly men. Despite this growth, the labour force structure did not ‘transform’. Industry never employed more than 10% of the labour force, only a small proportion of that was employed in large-scale enterprises, and many workers remained circulatory migrants. The chapter shows that it is imperative to understand this industrial labour force and forms of worker organization that emerged in the interaction of the nature of capitalist production with a large agrarian and impoverished economy, and of ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ social relations and identities.

Irrigation development in British India is widely cited as a main achievement of the Raj. The hydraulic projects, which built upon indigenous practice and evolved through ‘learning by doing’, were impressive engineering constructs that brought water to extensive areas of the subcontinent. They permitted expanded agricultural production and exports, bolstered public finances and protected the population from famine. However, the colonial context of the developments has produced contention among historians as to their role and value. This chapter discusses the different forms of irrigation in operation, and the impact of the increasingly large and integrated new systems in changing the pattern of investment and benefits between geographical regions from 1800 to 1947. Taking account of the changing technological and management aspects of the systems over time, and the way cultivators reacted to them, a broad assessment is made of the irrigation inheritance at independence.

With a study of the Punjab, which experienced phenomenal agricultural growth from the late nineteenth century thanks to the vast canal colonies, the chapter cautions against reading Indian economic history through averages. Even within regions, patterns of economic change were often a mixture of expansion and contraction. The emergence of the largest canal irrigation system in the world sharpened inequality between areas reliant on irrigated versus rain-fed agriculture. Based on its pattern of exports and imports, Punjab was a colony of Britain until the First World War and then of the rest of India. As the province exported grain to food-deficit zones in the rest of India and cotton to western India, major industrial centres such as Bombay partly deindustrialized the region. The capacity of the provincial government to redress inequalities and promote growth fell as inflation eroded the value of the land revenue. Yet standards of living and consumption rose and interdependence developed between the transport business and agriculture. The chapter suggests parallels between Punjab and other areas of northern India where commercial agriculture advanced in the colonial period.

This chapter notes that British law was hybrid in character, and also novel, standardized and sometimes ill-matched with India, but nonetheless adopted by many Indians as well as for official policy and purposes. The discussion mostly excludes criminal law but gives accounts of how civil law was applied. First described are codifications of Hindu and Muslim law, the evolving civil court system and laws on landed property and agrarian debt – with impact on production as well as social norms, alongside continuing sociopolitical dominance. Next considered are labour, contract and company laws, with limited range and effect, applying mostly to Western-style enterprises rather than to more substantial indigenous practice. Banks and currency were similarly regulated, with direct Indian influence only in the last decades of British rule. Such comprehensive, uniform law impinged more on some aspects of society and economy than on others, but did gradually and permanently reshape Indian practice.

Internal migration in India since 1850 was greatly facilitated by the revolutions in transport and communications and led to a widening of labour markets; the growth of large cities, canal colonies, mines and plantations; social and national movements; and the creation of remittance economies. This chapter describes the data and ways in which internal migration is measured and understood in the Indian subcontinent and analyses the migration trends over space and time. It also provides an outline of the broader historiography and research themes on internal migration, including periodization, economic theories of migration, causes and consequences of work-related migration, contractors and migration networks, caste, and nativism and anti-migration rhetoric and policies. A central theme of internal migration in India has been that of ‘circular migration’ and the remarkable persistence of the migration hotspots that developed in the colonial period and continue even today.

After the installation of a liberal constitution, the socialist tilt in the aftermath of independence challenged some of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, particularly the right to property, culminating in the removal of the right in the 1970s. Apart from noting the consequences of this, the chapter explores the effects of judicial hyperactivity manifest in public-interest litigation, as well as instances of overt judicial deference to the state. The other theme of the chapter follows the market orientation accompanying the 1991 economic liberalization, with the prominent challenge residing in the incapacity of the law and legal structures to govern long-term investment contracts. It is argued that the response – the creation of multiple regulatory bodies – resulted not only in fragmenting the law but also in raising generic social costs. The conclusion reinforces the narratives highlighted over the chapter by looking at arbitral awards imposed on India on account of international investment disputes.

This chapter highlights the factors shaping the trajectory of Indian agriculture since Independence, which has undergone notable transformations. The introduction of high-yielding varieties of wheat and rice ushered in a Green Revolution that propelled India from chronic food insecurity to a situation where food surpluses are the norm. This shift has been marked by increased reliance on markets for inputs, mechanization, a growing commercial orientation for output and the growth of poultry and livestock, often supported by government subsidies and increasingly driven by private investment. These changes have occurred even as traditional institutions, such as interlinked transactions and relational contracts with traders, persist. Indian agriculture has defied global patterns of farm consolidation and is dominated by smallholdings that support a disproportionate number of people. The Indian state faces the formidable challenge of negotiating a trilemma of ensuring the economic viability, environmental sustainability and social sustainability of this large sector.

During the colonial period, investment in India’s physical infrastructure far outpaced that in social sectors. In the first two decades of independence, political energy was focused on political consolidation and national self-sufficiency. Starting in the 1970s, attention shifted to basic needs. We trace the history of public-good provision over the four decades from 1971 to the latest census in 2011. We document the considerable expansion in public goods over this period and the variation in access across states. We illustrate how patterns of provision were the outcome of ‘top-down’ policy priorities interacting with ‘bottom-up’ processes of collective action. For scarce facilities, such as secondary schools, regions within states with political voice were most successful in obtaining access. We show that areas where secondary schooling expanded rapidly were also those where the most marginalized social groups among the Indian castes and tribes experienced social mobility.

India was a poor and unequal country in 1947. Much of its labour force was in low-productivity agriculture, but it had a significant, if small, industrial sector. A plausible trajectory going forward was that rapid industrial growth would draw labour into higher-productivity areas, reducing poverty and inequality. But India went down a different path, beginning with an emphasis on heavy industry. This increased the economy’s productive capacity, but did not generate enough jobs to dent poverty and inequality. Over-regulation and neglect of exports contributed to slow growth until 1980, though agricultural productivity rose with the introduction of new high-yielding varieties of crops in some areas. After 1980, and especially after 1991, policies became more friendly to markets and business and India grew rapidly, led by growth in the services sector. This, however, did not create jobs at the same rate, because the growth was skill- and capital-intensive. Poverty fell substantially, but inequality spiked, and job creation remains a big concern.

This chapter explores small-scale industries during the colonial period. Rather than seeing these industries as a traditional holdover from earlier times, it regards them as a large, vital and dynamic element in the colonial economy. The chapter explores two particularly important industries in depth. Handloom manufacture undoubtedly declined as a portion of the overall economy during the nineteenth century, but by 1880 it had started to grow, forging new markets, introducing new technologies and undergoing shifts in social organization. The production of medicines expanded by adopting new forms of marketing, particularly newspaper advertising. A range of other small-scale industries also grew during the later colonial period. Associated with these developments were the rise of a diverse set of small-scale entrepreneurs, new products and marketing methods; the introduction of small, ‘everyday’ forms of technology; changes in workshop organization; and the construction of new ‘business communities’. But these industries were also characterized by low wages, social dependence and precarity of employment.

Before the emergence of British imperial rule, India consisted of regions ruled by different states and frequently representing somewhat different ecologies and economic bases. The historiography of economic change in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, therefore, has developed as a set of regional studies. It is a rapidly evolving literature. What are its key concerns? One shared theme is the need to have a credible prehistory of colonial expansion, which should help to better understand the pattern of change that came after. With two case studies, Gujarat and Bengal, and attention to livelihoods, connections and varieties of capitalism, the chapter offers tentative conclusions on what this historiography tells us.

The chapter, along with a discussion on India’s population size, and estimates of mortality based on the decennial censuses from 1872 to 1951, reviews at length the factors that explain virtual stagnation in population size during most of the decades. Lack of growth in India’s population from 1872 to 1921 was a result of high mortality due to the spread of epidemics such as cholera, plague and malaria. Their etiology and spread were not fully understood. As a result, the measures taken by the British Raj could not bring deaths under control. Also, recurrent famines – widespread or localized – caused food shortages that resulted in starvation deaths and the spread of water-borne infections during post-famine periods when rains arrived. The period between 1921 and 1951 witnessed modest population growth and the onset of slow but steady decline in death rates. The decline is attributed to control over famines, mass vaccination against smallpox, some improvement in sanitation and an increase in health facilities, mostly in urban areas. However, malaria and diarrheal diseases continued to take a heavy toll when India became independent in 1947.

Gender inequality in India arises from widespread societal attitudes that prioritize the economic and social status of men and, as a result, favour investment in male children. Policy actions have resulted in significant improvements in women’s educational attainment and political representation, but there has been only limited progress in women’s labour force participation, in rates of domestic violence and rape, and in the abatement of trends in the selective abortion of girls. Attitudes pertaining to the status of women also show limited improvement.

When colonial rule began in the mid-nineteenth century, India and Britain were both poor by modern standards, although Britain was somewhat richer. In 1947, when colonial rule ended, the gap between the two was gigantic. Britain was a sophisticated and wealthy economy where per capita income, health and education had improved dramatically, whereas India was still exceedingly poor on all these metrics. India’s economy changed over 200 years: it was far more engaged in international trade, a modern industrial sector had developed and railways criss-crossed the country. At the same time, productivity was low in all sectors of the economy, especially in agriculture. Life was precarious: as late as 1943, a devastating famine took millions of lives in Bengal, a horror that indicted colonial rule. We introduce the reader to this complex story of transformation without enrichment, briefly commenting on how each chapter fits in the narrative.