ABSTRACT
A Muslim-dominated Pakistan to the north was carved out from the Hindu-majority India and some 15 million people found themselves on the wrong side of the new boundaries. India, which had fought long for its independence but had little time to prepare for it, embarked on a four-decade economic experiment in Nehruvian Socialism. In 1991 the Indian government was forced to begin a period of liberalisation when the balance of payments predicament that had been brewing throughout the 1980s worsened and became a full-blown crisis. The Mumbai-born author Salman Rushdie was a few weeks old when India gained independence. The young Indians entering the workforce and in coming years were born after 1991. The lure of migration, and the economic security that came with it, over decades meant that by 2016 the Indian diaspora was the largest in the world with 16 million people of Indian origin living in other parts of the planet according to the United Nations.
