Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

NOTE: Hateful, abusive comments won't be published. -- Editor

TRENDING

Beyond the 'silent relocation' narrative in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts

By Dr. Mohammad Asaduzzaman*  In recent years, a narrative has emerged from the rugged and forested terrain of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), portraying the region as the site of a “silent relocation” — a mass forced migration of Bangladesh’s non-Muslim ethnic communities into neighboring India and Myanmar.
Post a Comment
»

The farmer's burden: How oil, war, and climate are rewriting the price of food

By Vikas Meshram   The scorching flames of the Middle East conflict are now slowly reaching the kitchens of ordinary people. The true price of this war is paid in daily markets, vegetable shops, and in the shattered minds of farmers. Expensive crude oil, skyrocketing fertilizer prices, and rising agricultural costs are together creating the conditions for global food inflation — and this crisis is directly tied to what people eat and drink every day.
Post a Comment
»

Ram, Bam and Bengal: Memories of a Left turn toward the Right

By Rajiv Shah   The BJP ’s massive electoral win in West Bengal is being interpreted across political persuasions — except, of course, by the BJP itself — as the result of the alleged deletion of around 90 lakh voters from the electoral rolls during the controversial intensive revision process. This may well be true, given my own experience in Gujarat regarding the shoddy manner in which electoral revisions have often been conducted. In West Bengal, there also appeared to be a political angle to the exercise. But I am not interested in discussing that here, as enough has already appeared in the media on the subject.
Post a Comment
»