This Guest post by SHIPRA NIGAM is a review of a volume of essays edited by Atul Sood Poverty Amidst Prosperity: Essays on the Trajectory of Development in Gujarat (Aakar Books 2013).

Thousands of farmers protested in March this year in Ahmedabad against the state’s industrialization policies

This volume of essays is the outcome of a detailed study by a team of contributing research scholars led by Atul Sood. This timely evaluation provides an insight into many crucial questions: What are the constituent elements of Gujarat’s growth story? To what extent can the successful features of Gujarat’s growth story be attributed to the political regime fashioned by Narendra Modi? Is it possible to replicate even this limited success story at the national level – as Modi’s starry eyed upper and middle class following would like to believe? More significantly: what are the implications of Gujarat’s Development Model in terms of its sustainability and its desirability? What happens when we assess this development through a set of comprehensive   measures, judge its implication for the average citizen’s material wellbeing, and see what it means for the political and economic rights of citizens?  Continue reading Gujarat and the Illusion of Development: Shipra Nigam →