Over at Bloomberg News, Andy Mukerjee offers a pessimistic take on the future of India's economic development. I link to this article because it voices what I would characterize as a relatively uncommon view. Most academic and policy elites that I talk to are quite upbeat about India. But the recent path of economic growth and the Modi government's focus on issues of nationalism and religion has created seeds of doubt about the commitment that Indian policymakers have regarding the countries march toward modernity.
My personal view is somewhat more optimistic than Mukherjee's. I think that the structural factors that have led to strong growth in India over the last 30 years are likely to remain: a large market; a youthful, entrepreneurial population; a large diaspora facilitating technological exchange and the accumulation of human capital; democratic institutions with a free press and a decent emphasis on the rule of law; a decentralized mode of governance that allows some areas to thrive even if that does not happen everywhere.
That being said, the merits of the article are to highlight some of the limits to this optimistic view. It does so by adopting a very comprehensive historical view of India's development, which readers of this blog will find useful even if they don't espouse the article's overall pessimistic tone. Recommended.