India's tryst with free enterprise

Merchants from the north or south of India looked up to the state for mainly one role and that was the provision of political security

Laxminama: Monks, Merchants, Money and Mantra 

Anshuman Tiwari & Anindya Sengupta

Bloomsbury India, 

Rs 699, 435 pages

If India and China have been the two leading economies for a decent part of recorded history, it should follow that the two countries were doing something right in their approach to trade and business. There must have been one, or even more than one, congruent line of thought on business, on money and on fiscal matters. Did no one take notes, or had Kautilya’s Arthashastra written about 2,000 years ago solved all these questions for the future? To presume that would be