Economy & Society in Contemporary India 2025

About the Conference

Independent India is seventy five years old (1947–2023), and yet, poverty, sharp inequalities, jobless growth, among other things, continue to bedevil the Indian economy, making the study of  Indian political economy complex, interesting, and consequential. Traditionally, political economy analysis of India has spanned a fascinating set of debates and scholarly issues. However, changes in India’s political economy in recent years like emerging class relations, industrial patterns, supply chains, hierarchical social relations, and unfolding ecological crises, among others, warrant an investigation from a diverse set of intellectual and disciplinary vantage points. These changes in the last few decades have given the Indian political economy a particular character and dynamic, making it a complex, large, productive, and sprawling field with an ever-growing need to present a synoptic account of contemporary India.

Following from this comes the rationale for restarting a conference on Economy and Society in Contemporary India – a gathering for scholars of Indian political economy that will aim to:

• Explain the linkages between various fundamental transformations and changes that have taken place in the Indian political economy in the last few decades or are taking place currently.
• Provide an interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary account of various new political economy processes in India.
• Bring together the causal explanations and possible consequences of such transformative processes and incremental changes.
• Build an ecosystem of individuals, institutions, associations, scholarship and policy recommendations that can accelerate efforts towards an alternative paradigm to inform new economic common sense in India (and beyond).

After five successful runs in the past at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research and King’s India Institute, the sixth edition (and first as part of the New Political Economy Initiative at IIT Bombay) of this conference aims to solidify a platform for scholars, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to share their most recent insights and research findings on the political economy of contemporary India and foster interdisciplinary dialogues and collaborations among its participants to explore new paradigms to address key challenges.