The IT Industry and Employment in India: A Critical Reassessment

The Indian IT industry has been regarded as a success of neoliberal economic reforms, driven by private initiative and export-oriented growth. Accordingly, employees of the IT industry that are symbolic of the ‘new India’ are seen as the aspirational new middle class, ‘different’ from the traditional working class. This article critically examines these claims. Firstly, it is argued that the development of the IT industry should be situated in the context of the larger development of capitalism in India. Secondly, through an analysis of narratives from interviews with workers during a period of industrial restructuring due to geopolitical concerns and technological change, the article attempts to understand workers’ perceptions of industrial dynamics as well as possibilities of collective resistance against the logic of capital.