Founding Fathers of Indian Political Economy

This volume brings together the papers presented at a seminar on Classical Indian Political Economy held at the University of Mumbai in March 2002. There is no doubt that a rich tradition of economic thinking and writing flourished in India beginning with the latter half of the 19th century and extending right up to the closing decades of the twentieth century. However, in recent years this tradition seems to be languishing, and a whole new generation of Indian economists has been brought up in virtually total ignorance of Indian Economics. It is with a view to remedy this unbalanced and paradoxical situation that the seminar was held, and the same motivation underpins the decision to publish the Proceedings. The contributors cover a wide spectrum and include well known senior academics such as the (late) Prof. P.R. Brahmananda, Prof. Y.B. Damle, Prof. S.H. Deshpande and Prof. P.R. Dubhashi, as well as a host of younger contributors mainly drawn from Universities in Maharashtra. The scope of the volume is extensive and covers the thinking of classical Indian writers such as Ranade, Naoroji, Tilak, Gokhale, Gandhi and Ambedkar as well as Modern Indian writers such as Gadgil, Vakil, Brahmananda, Mahalanobis, Chakravarty and Sen. It is seriously hoped that the volume will go some way towards mitigating the apathy that seems to characterise the current attitude towards mitigating the apathy that seems to characterise the current attitude towards Indian Economics in India.