Book Review: Ground Down by Growth. Tribe, Caste, Class and Inequality in Twenty-First-Century India

Ground Down by Growth is the story of the India’s perennial and illusionary promise of achhe din (good days). Its argument follows in the line of global critiques of development that refute economic growth as panacea for the eradication of inequality (x-xiii). The central thesis of the book, however, is that the persistence of inequality in the Indian context is not merely a consequence of the false promise of development but, more crucially, of ‘the continuities of inherited inequalities of power’ (9) along the lines of tribe and caste.