Rural Industrialization, Drivers and Dynamics: Learning from India’s History

This contribution offers a critical evaluation of the lived experience and ideas cultivated for rural industrialization as a residual path in India, to draw lessons for peoples’ democracies today and their strategies on rural industrialization. The discourse on rural industrialization began under the influence of India’s freedom movement. The forces of national liberation articulated an agenda of emancipation to unite working people across the country. The outcomes of the decolonization of knowledge production were well manifested in the way the forces of national liberation generated their own distinct heuristics of industrial and technological upgrading, with the potential to positively influence the trajectories of development of peasants, artisans, and rural laborer’s as a productive force.