Below is a ~500-word, UPSC-ready answer, analytical in tone, with clear comparison + Indian illustrations, and structured for easy evaluation.
Andre Gunder Frank and Immanuel Wallerstein are key thinkers of the structural–historical critique of capitalism, but they differ significantly in their unit of analysis, conceptual framework, and explanation of global inequality.
Andre Gunder Frank, associated with the Dependency School, propounded the concept of “Development of Underdevelopment.” He rejected the modernization view that underdevelopment is a traditional or pre-capitalist condition. Instead, Frank argued that underdevelopment is historically produced through the integration of colonies into global capitalism. The metropolis–satellite relationship ensures that surplus continuously flows from the periphery to the core, enriching the latter while structurally impoverishing the former. Development in the core thus directly generates underdevelopment in the periphery.
In the Indian context, Frank’s argument is reflected in the colonial drain of wealth during British rule. India’s integration into global capitalism as a supplier of raw materials and a market for British manufactures led to deindustrialization of Indian handicrafts, stagnation of indigenous industry, and regional backwardness. Even after independence, continued dependence on foreign capital, technology, and markets in sectors such as mining or plantation agriculture illustrates what Frank would term neo-colonial dependence, reproducing underdevelopment.
Immanuel Wallerstein, on the other hand, developed World-Systems Theory, shifting the unit of analysis from the nation-state to the capitalist world-system as a whole. According to him, since the sixteenth century, the world has been organized into a single world economy divided into core, semi-periphery, and periphery. Core regions specialize in high-skill, capital-intensive production, while peripheral regions supply cheap labour and raw materials. The semi-periphery plays a stabilizing role by absorbing political and economic pressures and allowing limited mobility within the system.
Applied to India, Wallerstein’s framework offers a more nuanced interpretation. During colonial rule, India occupied a peripheral position. In the post-liberalization era, however, India has increasingly functioned as a semi-peripheral economy—evident in its role in IT services, pharmaceuticals, and global outsourcing, while still retaining large informal and agrarian sectors characteristic of the periphery. This dual positioning cannot be adequately explained by Frank’s largely binary model but fits well within Wallerstein’s tripartite structure.
Another major difference lies in their view of development prospects. Frank was largely pessimistic, arguing that genuine development in the periphery is impossible within global capitalism and advocated “delinking” from the world economy. Wallerstein, though equally critical of capitalism, allowed for limited mobility, especially for semi-peripheral states, even though overall systemic inequality persists.
Thus, while Frank explains underdevelopment as an outcome of exploitative historical relations between nations, Wallerstein explains it as a structural feature of the capitalist world-system. Together, they provide complementary but distinct lenses to understand India’s historical and contemporary position in global capitalism.