Asian history and culture as basis for understanding Asian economies today - Essay Example

The economic reforms marked a paradigm shift from the previous regime of state dominance based upon interventionist principles which had led to the problems of multidimensional inefficiencies and under-competitiveness of the produce, thereby leading to stagnation of economic growth, before directing it towards a severe macroeconomic imbalance and Foreign Exchange crisis. Given the protracted adverse effects of the development regime adopted in post-independence, the motivations for its espousal do require explorations.

The answer lies in the history of the Indian economy as a British colony. During this period the British imperialists utilized the abundant resources and evolved the basic economic structure of India to the advantage of the British economy (Metcalf and Metcalf, 2006, p 125). The inefficient strategy modifications adopted thereon were essentially enforced by the modifications made to the Indian economy by the imperialist motivations of the colonizers that shattered its rural backbone (Bhagwati and Desai, 1970, p 75).

This development was motivated by extraction and exploitation rather than generating a sound economic structure. It was this period that determined the course of the economy to be morphed in such a way that, at Independence, adopting a strategy of state interventionism was the only remaining choice. We shall aim to identify and explore key periods in India’s colonial history as definitive and significant to the cultural, political and economic developments which were, in essence, the determinants of Indian identity at independence, and the following political and cultural eventualities that have led to the present situation.

We shall first explore the second half of the 19th century, before moving to the political and cultural changes resulting from the enforced structural changes in the economy during the years leading up to the Second World War and the nationalist movements in India, and finally to independence. The