agricultural distress

HINDU RATE OF GROWTH AND INDIAN ECONOMY GROWTH AFTER INDEPENDENCE

India’s post-Independence economic journey moved from slow, state-led growth to market-driven expansion. The phrase “Hindu rate of growth,” coined by economist Raj Krishna, described India’s stagnant average growth of roughly three to three-and-a-half percent between the nineteen fifties and seventies. However, growth began accelerating from the early nineteen eighties, well before the nineteen ninety-one reforms, as selective liberalisation and industrial capacity building improved productivity. The reform wave of nineteen ninety-one deepened this shift, while the two thousand three to two thousand eleven phase delivered high growth of eight to nine percent. Since then, India has faced moderation linked to global headwinds, financial stress and the pandemic, yet it remains the fastest growing major economy. Thus, India has long surpassed the so-called Hindu rate of growth, evolving from a low-growth economy to one increasingly driven by reform, capability building and structural transformation.