Stagnation, Agrarian Structure and Credit (Daniel Thorner Memorial Lecture Series)

What have been the true achievements of the much-discussed green revolutions in the Indian sub-continent? What coalition of political forces came to choose the advice of the technologists over those urging structural reforms as the solution to India's agrarian transformation? What have been the costs of a development strategy which has ignored the agrarian masses in favour of securing the political allegiance of a landed minority? With a rare clarity of vision, Prof. Ashok Mitra illuminates the complex trajectory of India's agrarian transition and the range of political arrangements which have underpinned it. In a tantalizing exercise in speculation, Prof. Mitra asks how long can the interest of the industrial bourgeoisie ignore the cost of a political coalition with a subsidy-demanding landed minority. In his second lecture, Prof. Mitra traces the social origins of banking and shows that such origins lie in nothing more mysterious than power and privilege. Much-used categories such as cost of capital and rate of interest are shorn of their apparently straightforward technical explanations and are planned within their proper perspectives.