Date of Submission
Fall 2017
Academic Programs and Concentrations
Economics
Project Advisor 1
Sanjaya DeSilva
Abstract/Artist's Statement
This project sets out to answer the question of why South Asia was unable to go down the path of labour-intensive industrialisation, vis-a-vis the textile industry. This project compares the South Asian experience to that of East Asian, focusing particularly on Japan. First, we use a 1 theoretical lens, borrowing from several different industrialization models to pinpoint the intended trajectory of growth. Then we delve into the history of the region, starting off in the pre-modern Mughal era, then moving on to the era of British colonial rule. Finally, we move towards the modern era (post 1947) and analyse the politics of trade liberalization in the face of globalization that restrained the potentialities for industrial development vis-a-vis the textile industry. We find that over the course of time, different regimes created institutional weaknesses in the structure of society that remained prevalent and impeded prospects of industrial development.
Open Access Agreement
On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Imran, Ayesha Khalid, "Pulling on Threads: Why South Asia was unable to undergo labor-intensive industrialization" (2017). Senior Projects Fall 2017. 5.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_f2017/5
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