Abstract

India has been experiencing over the last two decades high growth, more than double world average, and unprecedented by her historical standards. The growth is mostly accounted for by the service sector, with information technology as a leading component and, to a far lesser extent in the manufacturing sector. However, the agricultural sector has grown very little. Quite remarkably the contribution of the agricultural sector to GDP is now less than one fourth, but it still accounts for nearly two thirds of the labour force. The apparent success in terms of the rate of economic growth without any corresponding pattern of development benefiting the agricultural sector and rural India, where most of the population lives, is turning this apparently economic success story of growth into an awkward political question: Can the largest democracy in the world afford to continue with a pattern of industrialisation which denies most of its citizens the benefits of high growth? This paper analyses the various interrelated aspects of this question that the country faces in the context of globalisation.