Abstract:
Banding together regions formerly ruled directly by the Britishwith some 548 princely States Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patelmanaged to stitch together a new nation out of the ruins of empire. The early years of the Indian republic saw an emphasis on nation building,accomplished through a top-down policy paradigm driven by the Centre andflowing down to the States. This was appropriate then and helped establish the ‘Idea of India’, a unified and stable political union. There is now anew ‘Idea of India’. An India that is marked by large and wideningdivergence amongst major States, in terms of income per person as well as in social indicators. An India that is growing further apart economically,socially and demographically. Our research establishes that the divergence among India’s large States skyrocketed after the period 1990/1, suggestinga link with the liberal economic reforms initiated at that time. This ‘new’India demands a drastic shift towards maximum regional autonomy. A ‘one nation one policy’ paradigm can fan fissiparous tendencies in a diversepolity and create sub-nationalism fault lines.

About Speakers:
Dr. Vivek Dehejia is Resident Senior Fellow in Political Economy at IDFC Institute. Dr. Dehejia is also AssociateProfessor of Economics at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada andColumnist, Mint. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics (1995) from Columbia University in New York, where his thesis supervisors included the Nobellaureate Robert Mundell and the noted international trade economist Jagdish Bhagwati. Dr. Dehejia is also co-author of Indianomix: Making Sense ofModern India (Random House India, 2012, republished in paperback 2015).

Praveen Chakravarty is a Visiting Senior Fellow at IDFC Institute. Chakravarty’s work focuses on empirical research using diverse datasets forpolicy outcomes. It encompasses fields of political economy using electoral data and issues of public policy in finance and economics. He has beenpublished in several Indian and foreign mainline publications and academicpublications such as the Economic & Political Weekly. He writes a popular monthly column titled "Noise to Signal" in Bloomberg Quint. Chakravarty isthe Founding Trustee of India Spend, India’s first non-profit datajournalism initiative, a board member of PRS Research that provides legislative research support to Members of Parliament and a board member ofCentre for Civil Society, India’s highest ranked think tank. Chakravarty holds an MBA from The Wharton School and an undergraduate degree from BITSPilani.