Indian economic thought: nineteenth century perspectives.

the purposes of this book, to focus on the leading economic ideas of representative Indians and to trace their links to the wider trends of economic thought and events, in the context of which the former become more intelligible. To treat economic ideas as a given datum of history is a convenient method of analysis. In this exercise one need not stray into epistemological blind alleys. It is useful to know how new economic ideas fitted into those developed by earlier generations and how far the former may be considered a continuation of the latter and their logical sequel. It is my conviction that "new" ideas do not spring into life in a vacuum. They are the response offered by the human mind to ideas developed earlier, it being presumed that chance as well as events in the broad march of history do play an important part in the generation of a particular response. One need not go so far as to presume that human history is nothing but the history of ideas; that it is ideas that make social institutions and cause changes in politics, techniques and all that is subsumed under "economic conditions".
It is important for the rising generation in our country to know that it has entered the social, cultural and economic environment that the preceeding generations left behind, while it simultaneously faces the changes that the present generation is bringing about in the "traditional" environment. The youth may feel that it lives in a world it did not make. But this feeling should be tempered by a rational appraisal of the past. The changing environment of the present may help as well as hinder them. But it determines their present situation, not the response which they may choose to offer to it. Indeed, one can think of different modes of reacting to similar situations, at a particular point of time.