ABOUT THE PRESENTATION

Since economic liberalisation in the nineties, on average Indians have grown vastly richer. But, now puzzlingly, women in most South Asian neighbours — Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives — live longer. Based on mixed-method research across four South Asian countries, Unequal: Why India Lags Behind its Neighbours, unravels this and other unexpected developments. The talk will explore how one of the main reasons why India lags behind its neighbours is the grip of systemic and, at times, barbaric inequalities, which are now on the rise. The bottom half of India’s population has to survive on only 6 per cent of the nation’s wealth. The ‘forward’ castes also control 41 per cent of the wealth, double their population share. Patriarchy is so acute that one of every four women in India cannot read and three do not earn an income. At the same time, India’s poorer neighbours are racing ahead in social development. Their excellent networks of primary healthcare clinics, village schools and toilets have transformed citizens’ lives. Women in Bangladesh and Nepal are also more likely to both work outside the home and hold seats in Parliament. Socio-political movements to dissolve inequalities of class, caste and gender have fuelled these successes. As this talk explores, India can learn much from its South Asian neighbours.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Swati Narayan is an academic, activist and author. She is currently a Visiting Faculty at the National Law School of India University (NLS, Bengaluru) and an Associate Professor at the O.P. Jindal Global University (on leave). She teaches courses on social policies and universal healthcare.

For more than a decade, Swati has worked with a range of civil society organisations. She is an alumna of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research and opinion articles have been published in the Guardian blog, Prospect Magazine, Economic and Political Weekly, Gender and Development and several other journals and publications. Her debut non-fiction book is Unequal: Why India Lags Behind Its Neighbours (Westland 2023). Unequal was selected by The Economist as among the six books on ‘what to read about India’s economy’, The Financial Times as one of the ‘five books to understand India’ and The Hindustan Times Policy Editor as his favourite book of the year. The book was also discussed in the Indian Parliament. 

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Sponsor(s): Center for India and South Asia