Paper short abstract:

The Indian School of Political Economy was founded in the late 1800s to understand the poor state of development in colonial India. This paper will look at the school’s founder, Mahadev Govind Ranade, to investigate whether the school was able to construct an ‘Indian’ idea of development.

Paper long abstract:

Debates over what constitutes development have interested political economists for centuries. Since the concept of development formally emerged in the beginning of the 19th century, industrialisation has seemingly become the most agreed upon instrument and goal. A similar idea of development emerged within the Indian School of Political Economy (ISPE) in the last quarter of the 19th century. The school's members were growing increasingly frustrated at the state of development in colonial India. This particular paper will concentrate on the writings of Mahadev Govind Ranade - the founder of the ISPE. Existing political economic theory taught to the school's members in the Western style universities in India seemed inadequate for India's socio-economic environment. Accordingly, ISPE was founded to develop a new approach to development catered to India's specificities. However, the school's idea of development is similar to the dominant and widespread Western concept of development, i.e. industrialisation. This paper will trace the origins of development discourse in ISPE between 1870 and 1914. In particular, the paper will trace how Western schools of political economy (namely, Classical Political Economy, the German Historical School and American Political Economy) shaped ISPE's conceptualisation of development. This paper aims to identify the assumptions of development in Indian Political Economy that seemingly constrain their theories into a pre-established structure. Despite these constraints, the paper will also investigate whether the Indian political economists at the turn of the 19th century were able to construct an 'Indian' idea of development.