The Lost Decade (2008-2018)
How politics derailed the Indian economy
The Lost Decade (2008-2018) maps the years during which the India Growth Story collapsed, and examines the political context as to why the Indian economy never recovered in the years following the global financial meltdown. Before 2008, India was booming, cruising at 9 per cent-plus economic growth. The economic boom impacted a large section of Indians, even if unequally. With sustained high growth over an extended period, India could have achieved what economists call a ‘take-off’ (rapid and self-sustained GDP growth). In the years after 2008, every time the country’s economy came close to returning to that trajectory, and it actually did on three separate occasions during the ‘lost decade’, political events knocked it off course again.
Two of these self-inflicted wounds can be traced to the UPA government’s term. The third was administered by the NDA government. Ten years were lost in negotiating setbacks and shocks that had nothing to do with the global financial meltdown or the economy per se. As a result, the ‘India Growth Story’ devolved into ‘Growth Without a Story’.
