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This essay discusses the constitutive relations between the discourse of colonial poverty and the land reforms policies that had characterised Indian economic policy-making in the eve of its independence, in their continuities and discontinuities of interaction. By the discourse method, it identifies the particular way of knowing the reality, producing and disseminating effects of truth and bringing the players (e.g. the State) to act and intervene, thus securing the legitimacy and power of the representation, or the regime of truth - the discourse. Section I decodes the ideological dimensions, assumptions and values underlying the colonial and post-colonial discourse on poverty in India. Section II reveals its constitutive relations with the land reforms of the fifties. Section III identifies the consequent rise of the private capitalist class in agriculture, marking one of the earliest indications of the emergence of the notion of ‘hegemony’ in the Indian context - in the sense of class alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the role of the enforcement of property rights, human capital formation, and the efficiency of various components of state governments' developmental expenditure on states' economic growth and interstate income inequality. Together with private sector investment in rural areas, property rights enforcement, human capital, government expenditures on economic services, and health and education are found to have positive effects on states' growth. We also observe that the interstate difference in the provisioning of government economic services is the leading factor in contributing to interstate income divergence in India. These findings can serve as vital technical inputs for formulating economic policies to achieve faster economic growth and mitigate regional income inequality in transitioning developing economies like India and hold greater relevance for other developing economies on their way to experiencing similar social and economic transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]