The Mirage of Global Superpower: In the Shadow of Irrationality

A Critical Review of A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey by Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian

“Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” — Kenneth E. Boulding

The publication under review, A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey (2025), authored by political scientist Devesh Kapur and economist Arvind Subramanian, represents a comprehensive scholarly endeavor spanning approximately 760 pages, divided into five parts and eighteen chapters. Supported by over 700 references and an extensive bibliography, the volume constitutes a rigorous compilation of historical data, statistical analyses, and policy interpretations pertaining to India’s postcolonial developmental trajectory. Nonetheless, notwithstanding its empirical depth, the work exhibits a notable deficiency in articulating a coherent framework of ethical values, moral imperatives, or a rational theoretical foundation informed by humanity’s evolving understanding of sustainable progress.

This review adopts a dual analytical approach. Firstly, it interrogates the internal inconsistencies within the authors’ arguments, situated against established paradigms of economic development. Secondly, it contextualizes these arguments within contemporary global crises precipitated by neoclassical economics’ emphasis on unchecked growth. Prior to this critique, a concise overview of the book’s substantive content is warranted.

Overview of the Book’s Content

The authors address three principal inquiries: the challenges and opportunities arising from post-independence economic policies; the primacy of institutional design and functionality over ideological orientations; and the failure of high-technology sectors (e.g., information technology and finance) to engender broader advancements in health, education, and employment generation.

Part I, “Origins & Order,” examines foundational post-independence decisions across two chapters, emphasizing the centralization of authority in response to partition-induced fragmentation, linguistic diversity, and the exigency of national cohesion. This constitutional architecture endowed the central government with preponderant powers in legislation, finance, and emergency provisions, deemed essential for stability amid institutional fragility inherited from colonial rule. The authors posit this as a Hobbesian compromise that facilitated democratic endurance while engendering persistent center-state frictions. Institutional development in civil services, judiciary, and electoral systems is also delineated within India’s multifaceted diversity.

Part II, “State, Markets and Economy,” comprising five chapters, critiques pre-1991 planned economy for structural deficiencies, including inadequate labor deployment in productive sectors and industrial underdevelopment. Post-liberalization reforms are characterized as reactive, yielding concentrated growth in urban enclaves and skill-intensive sectors, with limited employment creation and persistent informal low-productivity occupations. The resultant “services-led” model is contrasted unfavorably with manufacturing-driven transformations elsewhere, portraying India’s global integration as uneven and constrained by policy ambiguities.

Part III, “State, Society and Development,” elucidates institutional frailties, elite preferences for private provisioning, caste-based exclusions, gender norms impeding female workforce participation, and the limitations of affirmative policies in fostering inclusive equity.

Part IV, “Nation of Indias,” explores hierarchies, regional disparities, and fiscal federalism as mechanisms of negotiation and conflict, acknowledging democratic stability and poverty reduction while lamenting stalled structural transformation.

Part V synthesizes these themes, highlighting historical contingencies and advocating for enhanced institutional capacity and nuanced governance, with guarded optimism regarding mutable trajectories.

Theoretical Ambiguity; Neglecting Human Capital, Inequality, and Climate Externalities

Despite the authors’ meticulous documentation of persistent failures in employment, education, and healthcare provision, their unsubstantiated assertion of India’s potential for global economic superpower status reveals a foundational ambiguity. Conventional economic theory posits productivity growth—driven by human capital accumulation through universal education and female labor participation—as indispensable for sustained development. No nation has attained advanced status absent these prerequisites.

Empirical evidence underscores India’s deficiencies: female labor force participation, though improving to approximately 37-41% in recent estimates (Periodic Labour Force Survey, 2023-24), remains suboptimal historically. Learning outcomes, as per successive Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER), indicate persistent foundational deficits, with post-pandemic recoveries notwithstanding substantial lags in basic literacy and numeracy. The authors’ failure to reconcile these gaps with superpower aspirations renders their prognosis unsubstantiated, particularly for a nation comprising one-sixth of global population, where human capital neglect is untenable.

The authors’ alignment with Jagdish Bhagwati’s prioritization of growth over antecedent social investments—contrasting Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach—is further problematized by comparative cases. China’s and Vietnam’s successes integrate robust human capital investments, underscoring the fallacy of deferring welfare expenditures.

Additional oversimplifications include labeling the Nehru-Indira era as “socialist,” eliding its elite capture and perpetuation of inequalities, as noted by scholars like Sen.

Critically, the volume conspicuously omits “negative externalities” of growth—climate change, resource depletion, pollution, and socio-ecological disruptions—despite their salience in contemporary discourse. India’s greenhouse gas emissions rose substantially from 1990 levels (approximately 182-335% increases depending on metrics), exacerbating vulnerabilities to warming thresholds (e.g., 1.5°C by 2030). Projections ignoring these imperatives are inherently deficient, as pollution and biodiversity loss erode productivity and intergenerational equity.

The authors’ apparent endorsement of accelerated neoliberal reforms and tolerance for inequality—rationalizing wealth concentration as growth’s corollary—echoes critiqued “zombie economics” (Quigley, Krugman). This invites Polanyi’s interrogation of societal tolerance for disruption in pursuit of progress.

The Irrational Foundations of Neoclassical Economics

Neoclassical paradigms reduce human behavior to transactional rationality, marginalizing non-economic motivations (e.g., altruism, obligation). Assumptions of endogenous stability and perpetual growth via market mechanisms ignore externalities, fostering illusions of infinite expansion in a finite biosphere.

David Orrell (2017) enumerates neoclassical fallacies: mechanistic laws, atomistic individuals, equilibrium stability, statistical risk manageability, rationality, fairness, indefinite growth, and happiness derivation therefrom. Perpetual growth, treating ecosystems as economic subsystems, precipitates crises whose costs future generations bear.

A Sixth of Humanity is constrained by dual oversights: undervaluation of human capital within orthodox development frameworks and neglect of emergent ecological imperatives. Consequently, it contributes incrementally rather than transformatively to discourse on India’s development odyssey, perpetuating aspirations untethered from rational sustainability.

Book Review: A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey, Devesh Kapur & Arvind Subramanian
Page: 760, Harper Collins, 2025.