Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years

Tracing the spectacular
trajectory of ahluwalia’s life from its humble beginnings in Secunderabad to
the corridors of power in New Delhi, this book is a classic insider’s account
of how the India story was shaped and script Ahluwalia played a key role in
the transformation of India from a state-run to a market-based economy, and
remained a constant fixture at the top of India’s economic policy
establishment for an unprecedented period of three decades. The book
traverses the politics, personalities, events and crises in India’s recent
history. It goes behind the numbers to bring alive the politics of reform,
and how policy change was pushed through—at first, slowly, under prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and then much more boldly in 1991 when the opportunity
provided by a severe balance of Payments crisis was seized for wide-ranging
reform. Ahluwalia, who served as commerce Secretary and finance Secretary
during this crucial period, makes a convincing case for why, contrary to the
accusations at the time, the reforms that formed part of the conditionality
of the international monetary fund (IMF) programme in 1991, were home-grown
and not thrust upon a reluctant India by the IMF. Ahluwalia discusses the
successes and failures of the up a regime during which period he served as
deputy Chairman of the planning Commission, a cabinet-level position. He
presents the story behind India’s spectacular economic growth in the first
half of the upa’s tenure as well as its historic achievements in poverty
alleviation. He also candidly discusses the policy paralysis and allegations
of corruption that came to mark the last few years of up a 2. Narrated with
wit, humour and remarkable intellect, backstage is a definitive contribution
to India’s economic and political history by one uniquely positioned to write
it.