James Crabtree | The Billionaire Raj: Corruption, Division and Inequality in Narendra Modi's India

Lecture | February 25 | 5-7 p.m. | Stephens Hall, 10 (ISAS Conf. Room)

Speaker: James Crabtree, Singapore-based author and journalist, and an Associate Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Moderator: Geeta Anand, Acting Professor of Reporting, UC Berkeley School of Journalism

Sponsors: Institute for South Asia Studies, Graduate School of Journalism

Join us for a talk by James Crabtree on his book, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age, a colorful and revealing portrait of the rise of India’s new billionaire class in a radically unequal society.

ABOUT THE BOOK
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 Mumbai, where half the population live in slums, the extraordinary riches of India’s new dynasties echo the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers of America's Gilded Age, funneling profits from huge conglomerates into lifestyles of conspicuous consumption.

James Crabtree’s The Billionaire Raj takes readers on a personal journey to meet these reclusive billionaires, fugitive tycoons, and shadowy political power brokers. From the sky terrace of the world’s most expensive home to impoverished villages and mass political rallies, Crabtree dramatizes the battle between crony capitalists and economic reformers, revealing a tense struggle between equality and privilege playing out against a combustible backdrop of aspiration, class, and caste.

The Billionaire Raj is a vivid account of a divided society on the cusp of transformation—and a struggle that will shape not just India’s future, but the world’s.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Crabtree is a Singapore-based author and journalist, and an Associate Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. His best-selling book, “The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India’s New Gilded Age”, was released in mid-2018. It was short-listed for the FT / McKinsey book of the year.

Prior to academia, James worked for the Financial Times, most recently leading coverage of Indian business as Mumbai bureau chief, between 2011 and 2016. He is now a columnist for Nikkei Asian Review, and also a non-resident fellow at the Asia-Pacific programme at Chatham House.

Prior to journalism, James was a senior policy advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He has worked for various think tanks in London and Washington DC, and spent a number of years living in America, initially as a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Before joining the FT, James was a senior editor at Prospect, Britain’s leading monthly magazine of politics and ideas. He has written for a range of global publications, including the New York Times, the Economist, Wired, and Foreign Policy.

At the Lee Kuan Yew School, James teaches graduate courses on leadership and communication, as well as the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, and innovation in public policy. He is also a fellow at the school’s Centre on Asia and Globalisation.