Mapping the “Indian plutonomy”: The political economy of rise and growth of the superrich in India

ABSTRACT Scholarly writings on the politics of economic reforms in India have neglected the exponential spike in private wealth and plutonomic tendencies in the post-reform period. This article maps the political economy of the staggering rise and growth of superrich in India. It traces the roots of the state-capital relationship in the colonial period and provides the main contrast between the political economy of the pre-reform and post-reform periods. It does so by analyzing key variables that have facilitated, or continue to facilitate, the flow of private wealth in India. It also examines three major drivers of superrich wealth in India–rent-seeking, entrepreneurship, and inheritance. The article makes two arguments. Firstly, the state’s dramatic turn in support of private capital/wealth accumulation began quite earlier but assumed formal and dynamic forms only after the implementation of economic reforms in 1991. Secondly, the rise of India’s superrich has not simply been a function of merit and entrepreneurial skills as is popularly believed. It is a peculiar combination of other factors that are leading to enormous resources and capacity concentrated in the hands of the superrich and their ability to exert considerable influence on India’s domestic and global policies. Above all, the indispensability of the state’s support has been one of the key factors explaining why some people become and continue to grow rich in India.