Description: With the advent of COVID-19, India's ruler imposed the most stringent lockdown on an already depressed economy, dealing a body to the vast majority of India's people. Yet the government's spending to address the lockdown's economic impact ranked among the world's lowest in GDP terms, resulting in unprecedented unemployment and hardship. The book argues that global financial interests oppose any sizable expansion of public spending by India, and a handful of top Indian corporate groups actually benefit from the resulting demand depression armed wht funds, they are picking up valuable assets at distress prices. Meanwhile under the banner of reviving private investment, the rulers have planned giant privatizations, and drastically revised laws concerning industrial labour, the peasantry, and the environment - in favour of large capital. And yet, this book cintends, India could defy the pressures of global finance in order to address the basic needs of its people. But this would require shedding reliance on foreign capital flows, and taking a course of democratic national development. This, then, is a course not for India's ruling classes, but for its people to struggle for.