Associate Professor

M.A.(Jawaharlal Nehru University), Ph.D. (Political Science, Columbia University)

Contact information

Telephone: 6516 8582

Email: sasrm@nus.edu.sg

Location:

South Asian Studies Programme

National University of Singapore

5 Arts Link, AS7-04-06, Singapore 117570

Research Interest

Political economy; industrialization, welfare, globalization, India and South Asia

Political economy of development; Indian and South Asian politics and international relations

I was born in the ancient Indian city of Patna, spent a few years in Kolkata and grew up largely in New Delhi. In India one selects an honors subject before undertaking course-work. So I shifted from economics at the undergraduate level in Delhi University to international politics at the Master’s level at the Jawaharlal Nehru University ( New Delhi), and pursued doctoral work in political science at Columbia University.

I have maintained a lively interest in the political and economic aspects of development working on India’s economic transition to globalization and market orientation, the welfare of its citizens and the delivery of public services and South Asian regionalism. My research demonstrates that development is a political and economic process. The political and economic aspects of development are so deeply intertwined that they cannot easily be separated from each other.  I have a deep interest in comparative work on South Asia, the rest of Asia and other parts of world. 
I began teaching at the Hunter College of the City University of New York in 1996 and have taught at the University of Vermont (Burlington) and the Jawaharlal Nehru University before joining NUS in 2008. Nothing gives me more pleasure than students carrying on the good work in the work place and in scholarly life – which is the best reason to be in the teaching profession.

I have edited India’s Economic Transition (Oxford University Press, 2007); co-authored India Since 1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2011) with Sumit Ganguly; and am working on two manuscripts that deal with economic globalization, industrialization and welfare in India. I am editorially associated with journals such as India Review, Pacific Affairs and the Asian Journal of Social Science.

• Political Economy of Reforms in India (under contract with Oxford University Press, New Delhi)

• Globalization and Deregulation: The Politics of Economic Change in India (under review)

• SN2231 Contemporary South Asian Economies

• SN2233 India's Economic Policies and Performances

• SN3280 Governing Public Services in India

• SN4102 Critical Debates in South Asian Studies

Books

• India Since 1980, co-author with Sumit Ganguly (New York and New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2011). See http://nbr.org/publications/issue.aspx?id=ap (Round-table on the book in Asia Policy July 2012); The Hindu (see: http://www.thehindu.com/arts/books/article2788472.ece ).

   

• India’s Economic Transition: The Politics of Reforms, edited volume (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007)

Reviews: Pacific Affairs (March 2010); Journal of Development Studies (September 2008); Economic and Political Weekly (22 March 2008); IIM B Management Review (Bangalore: September 2008); Artha Vijnana (Pune: September-December 2007): The Book Review (New Delhi: October 2008); Business Standard (New Delhi: 6 December 2006). Review Essay: International Political Science Review (Vol. 29, No. 5, 2008).

• India: The Political Economy of Reforms, edited with Bibek Debroy, (New Delhi: Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and Bookwell, 2004).

Refereed Journals

• “Ideas, Interests and the Tipping Point: Economic Change in India,” Review of International Political Economy (Revised manuscript under consideration, 2012).

• “Interests, Wireless Technology and Institutional Change: From Government Monopoly to Regulated Competition in Indian Telecommunications,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 68, No. 2 (2009), pp. 491-517.

• “The State, Economic Growth and Development in India,” India Review, Vol. 8, No. 1 (2009), pp. 81-106.

• “The Political Economy of India’s Economic Reforms,” Asian Economic Policy Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2008), pp. 315-331.

• “The Politics of Telecommunications Regulation in India: Explaining State - Industry Alliances Favoring Foreign Investment,” Journal of Development Studies Vol. 44, No. 10 (2008), pp. 1405-1423.

• “Managing Competition: Politics and the Building of Independent Regulatory Institutions,” India Review , Vol. 3, No. 4 (October 2004), pp. 278-305. Republished in India’s Economic Transition: The Politics of Reforms (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007). Publication in Subrata Mitra, ed., Politics of Modern South Asia (Routledge, 2009).

• “Globalization and the Politics of International Corporate Taxation: A View from India”, India Review (Routledge), vol. 3, no. 2 (April 2004), pp. 89-113. Republished in Jaivir Singh, ed., Regulation, Institutions and the Law (New Delhi: Social Science Press, 2007).

• “Privatization, Federalism and Governance,” (Special article in a special issue on Globalization and India) Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 39, No. 1 (January 3 2004), pp. 109-113.

• “Digitized Trade Rules and India” South Asian Survey Vol. 11, No. 1 (March 2004).

• “India’s Aborted Liberalization – 1966,” Pacific Affairs, vol. 73, no.3 (Fall 2000), pp. 375-392.

• With Sumit Ganguly and Rajesh Rajagopalan, “India and South Asian Security,” Defence and Peace Economics Vol. 10, No. 4 (1999): pp. 335-345.

Shorter comments and book reviews

• With Andrew Wyatt, review of “Diaspora, development and diamonds: the domestic impact of international migration from India,” Contemporary South Asia (forthcoming Vol. 20, No. 3 September 2012).

• With Sumit Ganguly, “India Emerging?” Asia Policy Vol. 14 (July 2012): http://nbr.org/publications/element.aspx?id=606 .

• Review of “The Eagle and the Elephant: Strategic Aspects of US-India Economic Engagement,” The Book Review Vol. 26, No. 6 (June 2012).

• “More Taut Strings,” Outlookindia.com (New Delhi: March 26 2012): http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?280282 .

• Review of “Developmental State and the Dalit Question in Madhya Pradesh,” Seminar Vol. 622 (June 2011).

• “A Tiger Despite the Chains: The State of Reform in India,” Current History Vol. 109, No. 726 (April 2010), pp. 144-50.

• With Sunila Kale, “Introduction: India Sixty Years On,” India Review Vol. 8, No. 1 (2009), pp. 1-3.

• Review of “Divided Leviathan: The Regional Roots of Developmental Politics in India,” by Aseema Sinha,” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics vol. 44, no. 3 (2006), pp. 392-93.

• With Sudha Pai, Pradeep Sharma and Pralay Kanungo, “Uttar Pradesh in the 1990’s: Critical Perspectives on Society, Polity and Economy,” Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 50, No. 21 (May 21, 2005), pp. 2144 – 2147.

• Review of “Federation without a Centre,” by Lawrence Saez, Journal of Asian Studies Vol. 63, No. 3 (2004).

• With Bibek Debroy, “Editor’s Introduction” (to the special issue on The Politics an Economics of Liberalization in India), Global Business Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (July-December 2002), pp. 195-199.

• “The Danger of Conflict and the Prospect of Cooperation in South Asia,” Harvard Asia Pacific Review (Winter 2000-2001), pp. 61-64.

• “Economic Power as an Instrument of Statecraft,” Indian Defense Review Vol. 15, No. 3 (2000), pp. 46-50.

• “Global Political Economy, Regionalism and South Asia,” Man and Development Vol. 14, No. 2 (June 1992), pp. 120-129.

Chapters in edited books

• “Political Economy of India’s Growth,” in Ashima Goyal, ed., Handbook of the Dynamic Indian Economy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2013).

• “Political Economy of the Indo-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement,” in E Sridharan, ed., International Relations Theory and South Asian Regionalism Volume 1 (New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011): 301-28.

• “Regulation and Infrastructure Development in India: A Comparison of Telecommunications, Ports and Power,” in Vikram Chand, ed., Public Service Delivery in India (New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010): 177-225.

• “Political Economy of Reforms,” in Neerja G Jayal and Pratap B Mehta, eds.,   The Oxford Companion to Politics in India (New Delhi and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010): 483-98.

• “India’s Foreign Economic Policies,” in Sumit Ganguly, ed., India’s Foreign Policy, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2009), pp.301-322.

• "India's Shifting Trade Policy: South Asia and Beyond," with Vinod K. Aggarwal in Vinod K Aggarwal and Min Gyo Koo, eds., Asia's New Institutional Architecture: Evolving Structures for Managing Trade and Security Relations, (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2008), pp. 215-258.

• “Appraising the Legacy of Bandung,” in See Seng Tan and Amitav Acharya, eds., Bandung Revisited: The Legacy of the 1955 Asian African Conference for International Order, (Singapore: NUS Press, 2008), pp. 161-79.

• “The Indian State under Globalization: A Research Agenda,” in Subrata Banerjee, ed, Peace and Development: Haksar Memorial Volume IV, (Chandigarh, India: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, 2007), pp. 153-186.

• “Introduction: The State and Private Initiative in India," in Rahul Mukherji, ed.,” in India’s Economic Transition: The Politics of Reforms, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 1-24.

• “Economic Transition in a Plural Polity,” in Rahul Mukherji, ed., India’s Economic Transition: The Politics of Reforms, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 118-145.

• “Promoting Competition in India’s Telecom Sector,” in Vikram Chand, ed., Reinventing Public Service Delivery in India, (Washington DC and New Delhi: World Bank and Sage, 2006), pp.57- 94.

• “Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool,” in Kanti Bajpai and M. Siddharth, ed., International Relations in India: Bringing Theory Back Home, (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2005), pp. 367-383.

• “A Review of Administrative Reforms in India,” in Bibek Debroy, ed., Agenda for Improving Governance, (New Delhi: Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies and Academic Foundation Publishers, 2004), pp. 104-120.

• “The Potential for Trade and Economic Cooperation between India and the US,” in Kanti Bajpai and Amitabh Mattoo, ed., Engaged Democracies: Indo-US Relations in the 21st Century, (New Delhi, Har Anand, 2000): pp. 63-84.

Working Papers / Reports / Course Materials

• with Gyanesh Kudaisya, Rajesh Rai, Kripa Sridharan and Peter G Friedlander, Teaching Learning Guide for India Studies (This guide has been prepared for teachers in grades 11 and 12 in Singapore schools for a new subject titled, India Studies launched by the Ministry of Education in Singapore (2010).

• “Special Economic Zones in India: Recent Developments and Future Prospects,” Institute of South Asian Studies Working Paper 30 (Singapore: 8 January 2008). See, http://www.isasnus.org/events/workingpapers/29.pdf

• “Investing in the Indian Special Economic Zones: A Background Paper,” with Aparna Shivpuri Singh, Institute of South Asian Studies Working Paper 12 (Singapore, 30 May 2006). This paper was shared with the India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry as the Singapore Approach Paper.

• “The Indian State under Globalization: A Research Agenda,” Paper for the Ford Foundation’s Project on Globalization and the Indian State: A Research Project: (New Delhi: Ford Foundation and National Foundation for India, 2005) Working Paper Number 1, see:"http://www.globalizationinindia.com/html/working_papers.html

• “India in the Global Economic Order,” Indira Gandhi National Open University Course on South Asia: Economy, Society and Polity, Country Profile: India II (New Delhi, 2005).

• Digitized Trade Rules and India’s Service Sector (Bombay: MVIRDC – World Trade Centre & Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, 2003).

• “Digitized Trade Rules and India’s Service Sector,” Centre for the Study of Law and Governance Working Paper, No CSLG/WP/03-03 (New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2003).

• Governing the Taxation of Digitized Trade [Canberra: Australia South Asia Research Centre - Economics Division (Australian National University) Working Paper No. 2002/05, 2002]. See http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/asarc/RahulMukherji.pdf