Swaminathan Aiyar disputes Sangh Parivar's 'sone ki chidiya' plank for so-called Hindu period

 By Rajiv Shah 

In a surprise article, well known academic and journalist, currently with Cato Institute, US, Swaminathan Aiyar, has disputed the Sangh Parivar claim that India was a "sone ki chidiya" during the so-called Hindu period of history.

Published in the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) following peer review, a story in The Print based on Aiyar's article says that during what is called the Hindu period of 1-1000 AD,  the per capita GDP and population growth were both stagnant, no better than the  world’s. In fact, the growth of per capita income of India was zero, just as bad in most other parts of the world, not better.

Aiyar believes that Sangh Parivar people cherry pick economic historian Angus Maddison's data to prove India was "sone ki chidiya", but a holistic look into the scholar's data suggest just the opposite. According to him, the real growth of Indian economy took place not in what is considered the Muslim period, nor during the British rule, ,when the Indian economy suffered a setback. It took place only post-independence.

Want to read full research paper? Well, while EPW, known for its left-of-centre stance, has paywalled it, ironically, its original version is freely available on the Cato website -- it was published on June 21, 2023, more than six months before it found its way in EPW.