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The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

James Crabtree

3.88 · Rating details · 1,273 ratings · 155 reviews

A colorful and revealing portrait of the rise of India’s new billionaire class in a radically unequal society

India is the world’s largest democracy, with more than one billion people and an economy expanding faster than China’s. But the rewards of this growth have been far from evenly shared, and the country’s top 1% now own nearly 60% of its wealth. In megacities like M ...more

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Kindle Edition, 416 pages

Published July 3rd 2018 by Tim Duggan Books

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Apr 21, 2018 Christine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: netgalley-and-arcs, reporting, history-india

Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley.

Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers is only mentioned briefly in James Crabtree’s excellent look at the super rich of India, The Billionaire Raj. I found this fact interesting because I request the book via Netgalley precisely because I have read and taught Boo’s book. Granted, Crabtree’s book is a study of the extreme upper class so slums really don’t enter into the book. Yet, and Crabtree knows this, it is impossible to read this book, in particularly t ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Maciej Nowicki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The Billionaire Raj talks about The economy of India and its development path from 1991 to around 2010. I think it’s important to say that from 1947, when India won its independence from Britain, until 1991 it had been a closed, central planning economy. The whole business had been built on a closed and strictly limited system of licences, permits and tariffs. Then, in 1991, India has ended the central planning system and re-opened itself to the world. This is the period of early industrialisati The Billionaire Raj talks about The economy of India and its development path from 1991 to around 2010. I think it’s important to say that from 1947, when India won its independence from Britain, until 1991 it had been a closed, central planning economy. The whole business had been built on a closed and strictly limited system of licences, permits and tariffs. Then, in 1991, India has ended the central planning system and re-opened itself to the world. This is the period of early industrialisation that a lot of countries have gone through. So, it had rapid urbanisation where the agrarian economy becomes an industrial economy. As you might guess, such a change creates great opportunities for huge wealth creation at the top of Indian society. There is also another growth of the middle class as the infrastructure boom progresses and toll roads and ports are built.

It is also wort to say, that at the moment when liberalisation began it has delivered great prosperity, however, the real change in India happened in the middle of the 2000s. It was the period of an enormous boom of global growth which stimulated money that flooded from abroad, but also, it was the moment when we’ve seen the peak of China’s expansion.

Nevertheless, it’s not a classic retrospection of the development path of the Indian economy. The book is divided into around 20 chapters where each of them is dedicated to one super-rich in India or one important person who drives some part of the economy, culture or politics. So the book examines the work of these politics and tycoons and gives some judgements. Throughout the book, there are many analogies to the American economy and its stages. The author draws parallels to the gilded age in the US when top banks and oil & gas conglomerates achieved its dominating roles in the national economy.

In the book, there is a huge amount of anger and outrage at the growing inequalities of the country. It essentially talks about income inequality in India and how despite India’s great economic growth in the last couple of decades it has failed to deliver balanced growth amongst each social...(if you like to read my full review please visit my blog https://leadersarereaders.blog/the-bi...) ...more

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Jul 10, 2018 Ankur Vohra rated it liked it · review of another edition

Was really excited about this book- ordered it from amazon on the release date itself and to be really true, I am a little dis-appointed with this- was expecting a lot more insights into the the how and why of "Bollygarchs" which is the title given by the writer to new age billionaires in India. Over all it is a good and fast read for anyone interested in the contemporary sociopolitical and economic scenario in India and I do like the writers analogy of similarities in current economic scenario ...more

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Jul 10, 2018 Manoj rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, economist-recommendations

James Crabtree takes the readers through a journey into contemporary Indian economic scenario and draws parallels to the current state of crony capitalism in india to the gilded age in the US. The book is exhilarating and provides an excellent overview of the economic and political state of India since the liberalization of the economy in the early 90’s. The author demonstrates a thorough understanding of the Indian state of affairs through a mix of history, statistics and personal interviews. T ...more

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Dec 16, 2018 Vivek Vikram Singh rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a book where the hypothesis and maybe even the pithy title were formed first and then facts and perspectives were shaped to fit the “robber barons of the gilded age” narrative. Disappointing book with little scholarly merit. A few billionaires fitting the narrative are analysed borrowing Ruchir Sharma’s brilliant bad billionaire framework while several of India’s self made and less colourful billionaires were excluded as they would not fit this saga of corruption, influence and ill gotte ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Keshav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A topical commentary on India delivered from the PoV of its billionaires - primarily industrialists, but also media moguls and politicians - disguising a wide commentary on the state-of-affairs of the country. James Crabtree was the FT correspondent in India for 5+ years, an 'outsider', and his access to first hand interviews, masterfully collected and delivered in great journalistic style, is a literary achievement by itself. He has weaved together narratives ranging from Amma's dictatorial pre ...more

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Jun 30, 2018 ColumbusReads rated it liked it · review of another edition

After reading several glowing reviews of this book, I was extremely excited to read about the eccentric billionaire’s in India’s new gilded age. I read Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo previously and wanted to learn more about the wealth disparity in this country where the country’s top one percent now own nearly sixty percent of its wealth.

The most enjoyable part of this book for me was the very beginning:

The Shadow Of Antilia

Nothing sy ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Jonathan Mckay rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: superficial-journalist-books

The title and subtitle are very descriptive of what you will find in this book:

Billionaire Raj: focuses on stories of wealthy individuals, not India as a whole.

A journey: don't expect nuanced theses, this is a collection of narratives with only a loose connective thread....

Through India's new gilded age: that connective thread is that Indian development has been unequal and corrupt. The author draws shallow comparisons to the American gilded age, but I left the book feeling like the connection ...more

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Sep 05, 2018 Mal Warwick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

The Biltmore Estate sprawls across 8,000 acres in Asheville, North Carolina. With 179,000 square feet, the former residence of George Vanderbilt is the largest private home in the United States. Few private residences anywhere rival the sheer ostentation of the Biltmore Estate.

The most glaring exception is the home of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Antilia rises 160 meters (525 feet) above South Mumbai and encompasses 400,000 square feet. Ambani built the 27-story home at an estimated cost of The Biltmore Estate sprawls across 8,000 acres in Asheville, North Carolina. With 179,000 square feet, the former residence of George Vanderbilt is the largest private home in the United States. Few private residences anywhere rival the sheer ostentation of the Biltmore Estate.

The most glaring exception is the home of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Antilia rises 160 meters (525 feet) above South Mumbai and encompasses 400,000 square feet. Ambani built the 27-story home at an estimated cost of nearly $2 billion. A staff of 600 keeps it running round the clock. Antilia thus exemplifies the over-the-top excess on display in contemporary India. But it's merely one of innumerable examples of the lifestyle of so many of the country's more than 100 billionaires.

Little wonder, then, that British journalist and strategic analyst James Crabtree would characterize the era as "India's New Gilded Age" in The Billionaire Raj.

The Gilded Age analogy is apt, and Crabtree builds on it throughout his thoroughly researched account. The focus in his book is on the men who dominate India's industrial economy and the politicians who have enabled them. Above all, The Billionaire Raj is a story of corruption. The collusion between government and industry in 21st-century India mirrors that in late 19th-century America before the Progressive Era began to put the brakes on. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been widely expected to play a role much like that of President Theodore Roosevelt in reining in the super-rich. To be fair, the most excessive examples of corruption do seem to have been eliminated. But the economic reforms long expected from Modi have yet to materialize.

Is India's new Gilded Age a temporary condition?
Crabtree notes that "the Indian subcontinent had been the planet's largest economy for most of the last two millennia." The Industrial Revolution changed that by shifting much of the planet's wealth to the West. However, in the 21st century, the tide is turning back to Asia. Crabtree speculates that either India or China might rise to the top of the world's economic heap by the middle of this century. He seems to be betting on India to win this race. But the problems he highlights in The Billionaire Raj cast doubt on this speculation. The country's new Gilded Age does not lay a firm foundation for continuing rapid growth.

Economic inequality and its consequences
One of the country's greatest challenges is economic inequality. "India should now rightly be viewed alongside South Africa and Brazil as one of the world's least equal [large] countries," Crabtree writes. While India's billionaires live in sybaritic splendor, hundreds of millions of people languish in poverty-stricken rural communities and teeming slums. (Reliable statistics about poverty in India are hard to come by. Sources differ widely. But it's likely that at least half of the country's population, or 600 million people, live on less than $2 per day.) As the country's resources shift upwards to the fraction of 1% at the top of its pyramid, the untapped talent and energy of the poor remain a drag on India's potential. It's hard to imagine that changing. After all, "only one percent of Indians pay any income tax at all."

Colorful portraits of the country's nouveau riche billionaires
In The Billionaire Raj, you'll meet some of the most colorful characters to be found anywhere. Most are industrialists. Some are politicians. Some are both. You'll meet the "Branson of Bangalore" and the movie star who ably managed a state of 60 million people for decades. (She was so beloved that some of her followers committed suicide when she died.) And you'll meet the airline and liquor tycoon who lives in exile in England to escape prosecution for debts he left when his empire collapsed at home. None of these are people you or I might ever have the opportunity to meet. But Crabtree got to know them.

About the author
From 2011 to 2017, James Crabtree was the Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times. At this writing, he is an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. Prior to entering journalism, Crabtree was a senior policy advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. ...more

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Nov 19, 2018 Noorilhuda rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics-war-god-biz-development, netgalley

This is a very lazy piece of work.

It seems the author just wanted to spend time around the super-rich people, enjoying their homes, jets and wines, and decided to write a book about them for this very purpose! He actually comes across in this book as someone who wanted to be able to say 'hey, I hung out with that investment tycoon when he made that crude remark about women - and it isn't Trump!' I am not even sure he actually did all the 'interviews' as part of research for this book and not as This is a very lazy piece of work.

It seems the author just wanted to spend time around the super-rich people, enjoying their homes, jets and wines, and decided to write a book about them for this very purpose! He actually comes across in this book as someone who wanted to be able to say 'hey, I hung out with that investment tycoon when he made that crude remark about women - and it isn't Trump!' I am not even sure he actually did all the 'interviews' as part of research for this book and not as part of a Financial Times regular reporting assignment. There is no insight here, just restating facts wearing colonial eyeglasses.

There is nothing new in this book about the the billionaires or their business practices. There is nothing new either in the stories of Indian PM's performance or politics, his favoritism of and friendships with industrialists, or his genocidal-homicidal tendencies. As in any other country on planet earth, business leaders are always in touch with and cavort ties with bureaucracy, political parties, members of judiciary, law enforcement, and celebrities to enhance their trade and profits (just like politicians cavort the local tradesmen for influence) - the author makes it seem like the Indian businessman is a breed apart, as opposed to the American or European head of a giant conglomerate, and compares him to the Chinese businessman (who in author's view are corrupt and influential, and state-sponsored to some extent) - belittling both! The history of key industrialist tycoons is also irrelevant - why should a person read this book on Ambanis, Sindhanias and Mittals, etc. when they can read an article covering the same areas?

The author is endlessly - and needlessly - surprised by the grand houses of the billionaires. He wants to prefix a mythical reason to the residential skyscrapers. He obviously does not know about Indian culture which rests on showmanship and show-off-ness in equal measure. He seems to be in a daze about their opulent lifestyle (though their parties are no more nor any less than any party of a Rothschild or an Arab Sheikh).

The transformation in Indian news media (overemphasis on celebrity culture, hate-mongering on Pakistan and propagandist nature of news cycles) occurred in early 2000s, not after Modi. So he's clueless about that too - but it doesn't stop him from writing about the current emphasis on sensationalist hooliganism that characterizes political anchorism (picking Arnab Goswami amongst many, who is really doing what Bill O'Reillys and Glenn Becks did a decade ago in U.S. - where hard facts were replaced by comments and insinuations and self-righteous anger and race cards egged on by the mood of the day or establishment's bidding).

Skims the surface without touching the cream. ...more

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Oct 30, 2020 Minakshi Ramji rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfic, india

I was expecting a dense difficult book -- in fact it's the book version of the Netflix series Bad Boy Billionaires which is to say a deeper more meaningful version that goes beyond what happened to talk about the context, the people, and the places who enabled what happened - but without losing accessibility and readability throughout.

It also reminded me of a time when I engaged more deeply with current events - he liberally quotes Ashutosh Varshney, Sunil Khilnani, Jagdish Bhagwati, Amartya S I was expecting a dense difficult book -- in fact it's the book version of the Netflix series Bad Boy Billionaires which is to say a deeper more meaningful version that goes beyond what happened to talk about the context, the people, and the places who enabled what happened - but without losing accessibility and readability throughout.

It also reminded me of a time when I engaged more deeply with current events - he liberally quotes Ashutosh Varshney, Sunil Khilnani, Jagdish Bhagwati, Amartya Sen, and other academics/ journalists whose work I was much much more familiar with 20 years ago around the time I was in college .. but now of course my neo reptilian brain can only handle information that can be summarized and shared on a square piece of instagram.

In a nutshell, Crabtree describes a country where economic liberalization brought in huge opportunities in the 90s but even more so in the 2000s with the rise in globalization and global commodity prices. These opportunities were almost entirely co-opted by industrialists with strong connections to the political bosses or sometimes entirely by political leaders who simply turned into businessmen as well. This is particularly the case in sectors like power, coal, real estate, infrastructure, mining, and most famously in telecoms where licenses from the govt were required to begin/ expand businesses. We know from economic theory but also from examples IRL e.g. Malaysia, China - that corruption and growth can go hand in hand as it has in South India but not so much in North India. Added to this the stupendous costs of elections in India - conditions ripe for the rise of the Bollygarch.

Fascinating (but also depressing af) account of how most of these projects started in the 2000's were funded by debt where nationalized banks were buoyed by positive growth, rosy views of the future, bribes, and nudges from their political bosses. Thus we arrive to today where this house of debt is beginning to crumble.

I recommend this book -- it is hugely readable, entertaining, and informative. ...more

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Dec 18, 2018 A Man Called Ove rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: current-affairs-analysis

3.5/5 In the last 10-15 years, a lot of India ye , India wo, India falana, India dhikana books have come out by both Indian and foreign journalists. One has to be a bit careful in selecting as the writing can be really shallow and shabby. Recently, I liked the books by Patrick French and Edward Luce and this too caught my eye as it seemed to be on a specific theme - crony capitalism.
I am in a fix to whether rate it as 3* or 4*. Because I listen to a lot of podcasts with analysis etc, much of it ...more

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Apr 02, 2019 Siddhartha Banerjee rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I appreciate this book for providing a larger context and explanation of the different social, economic, and political forces in India that I've been exposed to, each in isolation, throughout my life. ...more

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Jan 23, 2019 Abhimanyu rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Don’t judge a book by its cover - or the awards it gets...

Before the 2008 recession hit the Indian zeitgeist, it was abuzz with the narrative of the success stories of business tycoons, especially in the city of Hyderabad where I was based - some were rags-to-riches stories while others were stories of how traditional family businesses had pivoted into consumer focussed industries, starting with the construction and maintenance of airports and malls and venturing into all kinds of other industri ...more

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Jan 03, 2020 Navi rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, 2020-nonfiction-challenge, netgalley, 2020-netgalley-challenge

This was an informative and well-written book. I recommend it with a small caveat. I would advise reading a quick Wikipedia entry on modern Indian history (specifically focusing on India's Independence) before picking this book up. At times, I felt a bit bogged down by the political details but thankfully I was reading on my Kindle which allowed easy access to Wikipedia for further reading.

This book goes into great detail examining how corruption is deeply embedded in Indian society - especially ...more

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Mar 23, 2019 Aakash Mehta rated it it was ok · review of another edition

While this book starts off well by examining the history of some of India's prominent billionaires, it then transforms into a political rant about how the BJP and Congress have affected India. I do appreciate some of the linkages made between the capitalist and political system, but this book focuses too much on the political side without any recommendations for addressing the issues or how other countries are dealing with any of these issue.

Read the specific chapters that are of interest to you ...more

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Jan 07, 2020 Anuj rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book briefly explains the crony capitalism problem of India. It takes good examples of personal, business sectors and government departments to help a reader understand the issue. Someone much more familiar with the matters will find this book more like an introduction, however for the uninitiated this will be a very interesting read.

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Jan 07, 2019 Raj Sinha rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Book review- The Billionaire Raj - by James Crabtree

This book is longish and a mishmash about India's post independence development - and that's the problem with it because at the end you are left wondering what the book is fundamentally about? About crony capitalism, about globalisation, about the massive divide between the haves and the have nots, about corruption (Crabtree even lists out interesting variants of corruption.....about Modi? (There is a separate section on Modi and his 4 year per ...more

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Jun 21, 2018 Joan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Tozer was concerned that the church no longer had right thinking toward God. Modern Christians had lost a sense of the majesty of God. He wrote The Knowledge of the Holy to help Christians know the character of God and His attributes. My favorite section was on the eternity of God. “[God] has no past and no future.” (73) “For Him everything that will happen has already happened.” (74) His explanation of the immutability of God was very understandable too. He also has a good chapter on living in ...more

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May 17, 2020 J.D. rated it really liked it

Shelves: culture, culture-asia

"Inside the machine, it was amateurism rather than authoritarianism that appeared to be the greater threat to India's future."

A whirlwind tour of India's economy and politics upon becoming an independent country, but primarily over the past two decades. This book focuses on three prisms with which to view India: billionaire Indian "Bollygarchs," the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Indianization of cricket. What I appreciated about this book was that you don't need any prior knowled ...more

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Aug 15, 2018 Skanda Shridhar rated it really liked it · review of another edition

James Crabtree arrived in India in 2007, an interesting time for me personally, as I had left India for Canada in 2006. I remember the palpable optimism of the time (to whatever degree a 16-year-old can sense such things), most exemplified by Time's June 26, 2006 article "India Inc". As Crabtree notes, the Indian economy had been on a tear and it seemed like times were good.

What was less known to people like me is what happened next. That's where this book steps into the picture. Now the blank c James Crabtree arrived in India in 2007, an interesting time for me personally, as I had left India for Canada in 2006. I remember the palpable optimism of the time (to whatever degree a 16-year-old can sense such things), most exemplified by Time's June 26, 2006 article "India Inc". As Crabtree notes, the Indian economy had been on a tear and it seemed like times were good.

What was less known to people like me is what happened next. That's where this book steps into the picture. Now the blank calendar may be filled with gory details, of the "lost decade" of infrastructure investment, of the flamboyant lending sprees by public banks, of the season of scams and the resulting policy paralysis, and of the bad-debt crisis of the 2010s which resulted in the travails of the likes of Raghuram Rajan.

Anyone who has ever visited India has become aware of the ubiquity of corruption there. Citizens are intimately acquainted with it. But this book does an excellent job of shedding some light on the various cogs and wheels of the complex machinery that may be impossible to ever fully understand. From the "career middlemen" that many citizens may be familiar with to the "rent-seeker" tycoons who promise politicians generous donations come election time, corruption operates at multiple levels in increasingly sophisticated ways.

To illustrate this, the author offers a fascinating juxtaposition of the "efficient cronyism" practiced in South India against the "inefficient" forms of the North, the former proceeding hand-in-glove with economic growth, with the latter usually involving skimming funds off welfare programs. Every illustration is accompanied by a cast of characters, from the "Andhrapreneurs" of the South to Subrata Roy and his empire in UP.

One criticism that I have is with regard to the discussion of the IPL: in attempting to explain how revolutionary it was, the author makes repeated comparisons with 5-day cricket as though to suggest that the latter was all that had been available before. This is an annoying straw man since anybody familiar with cricket knows that 50 overs cricket (a.k.a 1-day cricket) has far superseded 5-day cricket in popularity for decades. Compared to that, the IPL seems like far less of a radical innovation. However, the rest of the book is good enough to excuse that one nitpick.

One of the conversations I found most interesting was the one with Gautam Singhania, scion of a family of textile tycoons, in JK House. Maybe this was of personal interest since I attended JK School for a time as a little boy, which was established by the Singhania family, so you could argue they've had a footprint on my education. That footprint got a bit deeper with this quote, which I think also captures the essence of this book:

"Your skillset was managing the government in those days. Today it is managing a free economy." ...more

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Aug 05, 2018 Nilesh rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: economic-and-finance, good-non-fiction

This reviewer is too close to the subject matter to provide a review applicable to most other readers. These are my impressions from my viewpoint.

For the most part, the book provides a lucid, well-written account of "stories" of India's rich and powerful. Like in most societies since time immemorial, India's elite has substantial control of the nation's affairs. The author argues that the disproportionality is far more than normal or beneficial, which is fair. The tales also suggest the unusual This reviewer is too close to the subject matter to provide a review applicable to most other readers. These are my impressions from my viewpoint.

For the most part, the book provides a lucid, well-written account of "stories" of India's rich and powerful. Like in most societies since time immemorial, India's elite has substantial control of the nation's affairs. The author argues that the disproportionality is far more than normal or beneficial, which is fair. The tales also suggest the unusual and often super-legal/illegal ways of this control - which is also correct. India is quite unique in the way it works, like perhaps every major society when observed from close. The book provides a fascinating and fast-moving, story-book like narrative of the "Raj". This could work for anyone who is not familiar as well as even those who are well aware of almost all events and personalities.

The author's journalistic background, and writing style, are also quite helpful. One may debate many of the impressions smattered across the book, but none of the criticisms of any individuals or the system are extreme, new or hurtful. There is malice towards all, and the bias is to expose the underbelly of the system without discussion of any of the nation's positives - a brave attitude in a society that normally does not take criticisms well, particularly from a foreign writer.

To me, the negatives are elsewhere: the book amounts to a discussion of the symptoms rather than either the root causes or consequences. This reviewer, because of his background, can perhaps write a book on why we are where we are and what type of future it entails (which is more cyclical and not necessarily serially disruptive). In a way, the book is for an audience more interested in the salacious details of some of the stories (and the stories keep on coming with each one more interesting than the other) rather than any philosophical discussion of why which is bound to turn more contentious in a country like India. The approach likely makes the book more readable, but with a short shelf-life and of even less utility. ...more

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Sep 09, 2018 aneez rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Underwhelming, more a survey of the recent Indian corruption centric news, rather than an analysis. If there is an objective for the book it is the question: whether India's current gilded age will lead to a more progressive age (similar to US, a century back). To answer this question the author goes on to interview a whole lot of 0.1% of their gripe for the 0.001%, as a result quite thin on analysis. Because of this structure, there is lack of context and history in his analysis, events are loo ...more

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Feb 01, 2019 Nallasivan V. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Given the promising premise it had, the book was disappointing in some ways. The title, tagline and even the blurbs seemed to suggest a well-researched book that would reveal the inner workings of crony capitalism in India. But what we get is a part-memoir and part-secondary research narrative that would have been a long economist article.

As an economist article would do, this book makes sweeping generalizations that skims over a complex issue leaving out nuances. Even the secondary research ra ...more

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Nov 25, 2018 Nilesh Injulkar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history

The book is so relevant to today’s economical and political conditions in India, that it becomes an interesting read quickly. The books covers how crony capitalism rose in India after liberation of Indian economic in early 90’s, its effects on social, political state of the country.

It goes through list of super rich “bollygarchs” from Ambanis to Mallya to Adani to south Indian politician-businessmen and how they controlled the governments for their benefits.

Coverage of scams of last decade gives ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Nathik rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: globalization, non-fiction, 2019, politics, indian

"The Billionaire Raj" is one of the books that are often sited as best books of 2018 many commentators and journalists in India. The writer has worked on India as journalists until 2016 and someone who knows the country quite well. This peaked my interest in the book.

The book is loosely divided into three parts. First part focus on the Billionaire of India (Crabtree dubs them as "Bollygrach"). The second part focus on crony captalisim in Indian and third part focus on the boom and bust cycle of ...more

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Jul 07, 2018 Rama Chaithanya Ganapa rated it liked it · review of another edition

The author tries to explain how India is more similar to America rather than UK in terms of economic development post liberalization in 1991. Goes to the extent of explaining all the new born billionaires holds such an influence they can literally dictate the law.

"If Russia is an oligarchy, how long can we resist calling India one?"

"Too many businesses were accumulating wealth because of their ability to manage the government rather than manage innovation,"

What is briefly explained well is, how ...more

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Nov 23, 2018 Vivek rated it liked it · review of another edition

In "The Billionaire Raj", James Crabtree, formerly the Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times analyzes India's Gilded age which was triggered by the 1991 financial reform. He compares it to the rise of the robber barons in America in the late 19th century. The book is divided into 3 sections - The Rise of the "Bollygarchs" - the Indian super-rich, Crony Capitalism and thirdly, the Boom and Bust cycle of the Indian economy and where it stands now. A lot of the topics covered, stories of Adan ...more

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Dec 05, 2018 Kunal Medhe rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2018

One of the lousiest books ever I have read. Wanted to read a India centric book, so landed up on this after found it mentioned in an article in Mint newspaper.

This book is just a recap of financial scandals in the last decade in india, banks going NPA, rise of Andhrapreneurs, freebie culture in India during elections and blak money in elections. Not even an attempt to make an original analysis.

Midway in the book, the author goes on to criticize that Indian democracy is in shambles and later app ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 Vidhya Nair rated it liked it · review of another edition

I’ve read most of the books written by FT correspondents who lived in India as part of their job. Because of the FT, they gain access to major business and political figures of contemporary India and often these correspondents are intellectual, inquisitive and research and engage in many candid observations on the changes happening in India. You can see more than anything how india changes them personally too. Same for this author. Much of what he writes is what we do read from the news. It’s a ...more

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About James Crabtree

James Crabtree

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James Crabtree is an associate professor of practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He was formerly the Mumbai bureau chief for the Financial Times.