ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the Indian story on innovation and inequality. It presents the trends in inequality in its different dimensions in an evolutionary perspective. At the time of independence, India inherited an extremely backward economy with asymmetric social and economic structures from the colonial rulers. Inequality in the Indian society, as elsewhere, has multiple dimensions. Income and wealth inequality manifests the underlying inequalities in the capabilities and choices, which in turn are tempered by the institutions that make or mar disparities in society. India’s development experience in the post-colonial period has remained quite unique and challenging. The Indian Patent act passed by the Indian Parliament in 1970 was one of the cornerstones of India’s innovations system that facilitated indigenous technology development. Analysis of the Indian experience further suggests that the extent to which the innovation system reinforced or undermined inequality was governed to a great extent by the forces that drive the innovation system.
