The argument of this dissertation is that the Indian socialist system, intended to speed industrialization and to improve the underdeveloped colonial economy, has failed todevelop agriculture and to curb the growth of population has thus had a serious adverse effect on the poor Indian citizens whom it was designed to help. The dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter One gives background on the development of Indian socialism and shows how it branched into Gandhian and Nehruite forms and how the Nehruite form came to dominate during the post-independence period. It also describes the government's industrial policy, that was developed to guide India's future industrial development in line with the socialist goals. Chapter Two discusses two interelated aspects of Indian economic planning: (1) the formation of a planning system with National Commission as its advisory body and the development of the system's long-term objectives and goals; (2) the construction of the five-year plans and their over-all performance. This chapter thus gives a comprehensive picture of official Indian economic policies, and culminating in the six five-year plans begun in 1951, and distinguishes their successes and failures. Chapter Three examines the development and expansion of agriculture under the British India, and then it reviews the government's efforts to improve agriculture, its land-reform policies, the allocation of funds in the five-year plans, the status of peasants, and the food production in the thirty years of planning. Linking agriculture to population, Chapter Four surveys population growth, its causes, and the government's efforts to restrain it. The last section of this chapter investigates the casual connection between population and economy, specifically agricultural economy. Finally, Chapter Five examines the intertwining effects of agriculture and population on the national economy and on the socialist objective itself, pinpoints the planners' mistakes in ignoring these two factors, and recommends some changes to improve agriculture production, to better the peasants' condition, rejuvenate the village economy and to expand employment opportunities for the masses--all to bring India closer to its long-cherished socialist goals.

This paper discusses the attempt to achieve balanced economic growth in India. The process is viewed as a transition of society from a traditional stage to one characterized by industrialization and economic growth, and which involves major economic, social and political changes. It specifically deals with the Indian banking system and its structural development since independence as a means to hasten economic growth. These changes in the banking system, through social control, and eventually nationalization of the major commercial banks in India,, illustrate the increasing role of the State in gearing the banking sector towards meeting the goals of national economic planning. The above events are related to the struggle between the moderates and those who advocate a more socialist approach to solving the economic and social problems in India.

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The principal aim of this thesis is to elaborate a politicized reading of Amartya Sen's Capability Approach. It explores how capabilities are augmented through the forging of contentious political subjectivities. In it, I build on the criticism that Sen's framework can be more sensitive to questions of power and politics. Against some of his critics, however, I argue that its 'politicization' must focus analytical attention on politics as the struggle to produce subjects rather than limiting its understanding to negotiations over authority, resources and allocations. I draw on quantitative and qualitative analysis of ethnographic data from rural eastern India to substantiate my argument. The first two chapters outline the contours of the debates and introduce the social, economic and political life of the study localities. Each of the four subsequent chapters elucidates the manner in which the contentious processes through which political subjectivity are forged augments capabilities. In Chapter 3 I advance the case that any discussion on capabilities needs to analyze how subjects interrogate the relations of domination and subordination which they have hitherto been compelled to inhabit. Based on an analysis of the contentions spawned by the Indian Government's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, I point to how the notion of cooperative conflict is helpful in understanding these processes. In Chapter 4, I draw attention to the analytic importance that needs to be accorded to 'voice' in order to understand how subjects contest and reconstitute these relationships: I base my analysis on the claims made on elected representatives by different groups of people in respect to 'poverty cards'. This emphasis leads in Chapter 5 to an investigation of the ways in which agonistic exchanges in public spaces augments capabilities: this I do through an examination of two specific disputes involving a variety of local actors. I develop these insights further in Chapter 6 to show how our understanding of the processes through which capabilities may be enhanced gains analytically from an analysis of the manner in which subjects construct their identities. Chapter 7 concludes.