Past Imperfect Episode 16: Ashoka Mody on a More Broken India

Past Imperfect Episode 16 features SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel in conversation with Ashoka Mody, formerly a deputy director at the International Monetary Fund and a visiting professor at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and author of India Is Broken. When Ashoka Mody published India is Broken two years ago, it stoked fierce controversy. Instead of describing the promise of the “India story”—a buoyant economy, a growing middle class, and great potential for manufacturing and service sector growth—Mody portrayed a country which systematically refused to get the basics right. India, Mody argues, remains trapped in a jobs crisis, and its failure to meaningfully invest in quality education, public health, and other public goods condemns it to continued high rates of unemployment and underemployment. In this episode, Mody explains how his views have evolved in the past two years, and why he believes that India is even more broken today.