Kingdom of the moguls

The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age. By James Crabtree.Tim Duggan Books; 416 pages; $ 28. Oneworld Publications; £18.99.

WRITING about India generally falls into one of two categories. There is what you might call the classical view, which emphasises the country’s messy democracy, the court intrigue in Delhi, the role of the powerful states, and poverty and religion. And then there is the business-school view, which sees India as a huge potential market that could one day rival China, with a dynamic business scene that is already the world’s eighth-largest, ranked by market capitalisation. James Crabtree’s new book, “The Billionaire Raj”, does the great service of tying these two stories together, showing how India’s political system and its firms are symbiotically connected, in an entertaining—and sometimes disturbing—fashion.

Mr Crabtree is a former…Continue reading
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