The Earth, not the sky, is the limit: India and ‘The Great Transition’ to an ecological world

Abstract Since the early days of this phase of globalization in the 1980s and 1990s, India has experienced impressive rates of economic growth, though it has suffered since 2008 from being integrated with the global economy, which has been in serious financial and economic crisis. Moreover, even if growth may have resulted in poverty declining in some isolated pockets, inequalities of income, wealth and access to key services have grown dramatically in the country as a whole. The beneficiaries of the growth process are confined mostly to the top quarter of the population. Furthermore, ‘development’ under globalization has had disastrous consequences for the environment. If ‘sufficient’ prosperity, distributive justice and ecological survival are the goals, business-as-usual is not an option in India. The development trajectory of the Western world and East Asia cannot be repeated in India for many reasons. The best bet is to regulate markets and integrate macroeconomic policies within a radically new socio-ecological vision capable of addressing the emerging crises. This paper discusses these points and pointers towards a new socio-ecological vision through twelve propositions about India in the global economy in the 21st century.