The role of ideological change in India's economic liberalization

The paper describes the role of ideological change in India's economic liberalization and provides evidence for it. Since the 1980s the most prevalent ideology has changed from condemning commerce and profit as anti-social, to tolerating—even applauding—commercial success. The paper reports on a content analysis of the most popular Hindi film each year since 1955, and finds that characters of rich merchants have changed from being portrayed as villains to being portrayed as heroes.

► I argue that India's liberalization cannot be explained with wealth-maximization alone.
► The prevalent ideology in India changed dramatically before the liberalization.
► Commerce was looked upon as anti-social, now it is celebrated.
► Content and narrative analysis of Indian films reveals the change in ideology.