'India Shining' has become the brand name for a new India presented in Bollywood films, adverts and books. A key part of this image is the software industry, held up as the symbol of prosperity and post-modernity.



Dot.compradors reveals the darker reality behind 'India Shining', providing a history of the industry from the 1970s to the present. Jyoti Saraswati punctures the myth of a free-market industry by revealing the role of state intervention and how vested interests and elite corruption have shaped, and continue to shape, one of the world’s most dynamic sectors.



Saraswati argues that the interests attached to the software industry and the policies they are pursuing are both an impediment to the growth of local software firms and to a broader-based, more egalitarian form of development in India.