Not by Reason Alone is a comment on the past and present of the politics of change.  The book explores both interpretations of this statement: first, the accumulating evidence, anecdotes, and signs that reason alone does not drive the behaviour of groups or of nations; second, that we need to NOT be reasonable sometimes.  This insightful analysis of the political economy of reform is coupled with the  understanding that we need to be compassionate, passionate, creative, hopeful, altruistic, and otherwise unreasonable, to ensure that the politics of change is more than a dull grinding reconciliation of interests —at least once in a while.

India needs these kinds of unreasonable discontinuities now more than ever. Major liberalization happened more than a decade ago and while there have been important advances since then, the pace has slowed. The ‘reform days’ are slipping into the past. At the same time, the need for change has intensified. India still shines, India is still incredible, but the chinks in the armour are showing as never before.

Including a review of the results of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the author, N.K. Singh, draws on his experiences as a close observer, initiator and driver of India’s post-reform trajectory to analyse the directions in which India is moving. Having held top positions in the finance ministry and Planning Commission as a civil servant over the past decades, and currently as a member of the Rajya Sabha, N.K. Singh has a rare exposure to national, state, political, and bureaucratic aspects of India’s policy-making and policy- implementation processes. 

Not by Reason Alone: The Politics of Change draws on that diverse experience to give the reader an unusual window into the Indian political economy. Singh has analysed, critiqued, explained and prompted several recent attempts at reforming infrastructure, opening the financial sector, Centre–state relations, deregulating administered prices, rationalizing subsidy and changing attitudes to India from a global perspective in his popular ‘From the Ringside’ column in the Indian Express and articles in other major national dailies. 

In many ways the issues raised in this book, a companion to the earlier volume, are the core riddles of India’s economic development prospects.