Class, Inequality, and the Current Political Moment in China and India _ Prof Vamsi Vakulabharanam

Democracy Dialogues Series 39 _ Organised by New Socialist Initiative

Theme : Class, Inequality, and the Current Political Moment in China and Speaker :
Professor Vamsi Vakulabharanam
Co-Director of the Asian Political Economy Program and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Time and Date : 6 PM (IST) Sunday , 11 th May 2025

Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85477229764...


The meeting was live-streamed on Facebook (facebook.com/newsocialistinitiative.nsi).
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Theme: Class, Inequality, and the Current Political Moment in China and India

This talk is based on a recently published book by the Oxford University Press – Class and Inequality in China and India, 1950-2010. China and India have seen a significant revival over the last three decades in terms of their place in the world economy. Two and a half centuries ago, they contributed 50 percent of the world output; after suffering a decline thereafter, their share fell to a paltry 9 percent in 1950 but has since resurged to over 25 percent today. Their growth and inequality experiences diverged for three decades following India's independence (1947) and the Chinese revolution (1949). Thereafter, there are remarkable underlying similarities in the experiences of both countries, especially in terms of their rising inequality patterns analyzed through a class lens. Vamsi demonstrates that the mutual interconnectedness between Chinese and Indian growth and inequality dynamics and the transformation and evolution of global capitalism is key to understanding the within-country inequality dynamics in both countries over the 1950-2010 period. Based on this analysis of class-based inequalities, Vamsi reflects on the current political moment in both countries, from a political economy perspective.

Speaker : Prof Vamsi Vakulabharanam

Vamsi Vakulabharanam is Co-Director of the Asian Political Economy Program and Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has previously taught at the University of Hyderabad (2008-14) and the City University of New York (2004-07). His recent research focuses on inequality in India and China and the political economy of Indian cities through the axes of gender, caste, class, and religion. In the past, he has also worked on agrarian change in developing economies, agrarian cooperatives, and the relationship between economic development and inequality. Vakulabharanam was awarded the Amartya Sen award in 2013 by the Indian Council of Social Science Research.