People who are this childish to question government policy right after independence should understand prevailing conditions then. India just got free from a colonial power which had sneaked in with trade as a excuse and then ruined pretty much everything for the next 3 centuries.
Conditions prevailing, Nehru did what he could. He saw what had emerged from partition riots and saw secularism as the most natural outcome. He realized the only way Indian borders that would ever be secure is we learn to be self sufficient, not just militarily, or with advanced weapons like Nuclear weapons. But with our indigenous economy, with our own industries, with our trained workforce and our own technology and manufacturing capabilities.
If anything you should thank them, what we were was a predominantly peasant economy(like Bangladesh), we now have means to defend any invasion, we have our own nuclear weapons, we have our own space program, we developed a lot of early industrial and manufacturing capabilities. We built our own engineering, medical other academic institutions purely out of nothing. The period between 1950-1990 was a period of institution building.
If you wish to look what has become of other countries with over zealous ideas look at Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka.
In fact bulk of engineering education infrastructure in cities in Bangalore directly derives from industries like ITI, BEL et which were established in the city, fueling the demand.
India is the top-dog in the region, and trying to show Pakistan which is nothing but an Islamist Garrison State. Coup-ridden and Confused Bangladesh or Civil-War ridden Sri Lanka as counter examples for not following Nehruvian Socialism, makes me feel that intellectually we are in two completely different dimensions.
You are basically proving my point, India is a 4 stage rocket stuck in stage 2. Nehru died in 1964. 52 years ago. India is still a country with 56% population in Agriculture and on top of it, literacy rate of 71% (which I honestly think is padded). And the Alphabet soup of defense establishments, and you got LCA Tejas which is third rate fighter and Indigenous Arjun is miles away from T-92 and the satellite program is not as advanced as NASA in 1960s (they landed a man on the moon).
Truly so, We didn't have the great famine like China(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine) where close to 45 million people died. We didn't remain like Bangladesh, which is still a peasant economy. Nor do we have internal troubles that Pakistan has currently. We have refused to be proxy states to USSR and USA. And we are quite progressive economically. True we haven't eradicated poverty and hunger yet, but neither has any country of our scale.
>>But under the auspicious of Nehru and then under Indira Gandhi, India aped Soviet style planning and top down approach for a country that is a "natural confederation"
Why wouldn't they copy USSR? It was a economic model that is paying off Russia till date. Russia went from a peasant state, under Tsar's control to becoming a unchallenged super power in half a century. Heck there is no absolute free market anywhere, the only question is to what extent do you allow it. Even countries like US, have a central planning where they decide budgets.
>>RD Tata was correct, if you want to read the counter vision to Nehru, read up on JRD Tata. He was proponent for free market capitalism, which would have had far better results.
If I were the Prime minister of a new independent nation, with no sizable skilled population, and a agrarian peasant ecomony. My priorities would be way different. I would be looking at how I can build the next generation engineering colleges(IIT's), management colleges(IIM's), the best administrative cadre(IAS), I would be looking at building irrigation infrastructure for farm lands to end drought and famine(Dams and reservoirs), I would be looking at energy generation(Power plants, hydel power), I would looking at bringing internal peace and harmony(Police force), I would looking at building in-house skilled labour(Government polytechnics), manufacturing capabilties among my fellow citizens(ITI, BEL, BHEL), my own defence manufacturing, research and developement(HAL, DRDO, ADE etc), I would looking at building my future space program(ISRO), my own nuclear program. All this in a hostile neighbourhood. Without any of these, simply thinking that a smal policy change is over simplification of a very complicated problem.
This is how governments think. Priorities of a business family would be way lower on my list.
Nehru has already done more nation/institution building work, than any Prime minister will ever do.
>>counter examples for not following Nehruvian Socialism, makes me feel that intellectually we are in two completely different dimensions.
No, we are in the same boat. I support hard core free market capitalism. But a child needs to crawl first before it can think of running or beating Usain Bolt.
You can't build a F-16, when you don't even know/have skills to repair a bicycle.
It's funny though West Germany, which was completely ruined by WW2 emerged as a lot more prosperous country than what India did for the first 40 years. Do you have any idea how badly Germany was bombed.
If you say things like "But Germany is an exception because X", then think why East Germany couldn't be as rich. East Germany was about as poor as West Germany after WW2.
Similarly, Korean split was another one of those examples. You may say that economics doesn't matter, but the fact is that it does. 1990s onwards we have made our lives so much better, and the shit didn't have to be so bad for our forefathers and parents.
All Indians do is give excuses for why India was poor, but nearly all their excuses can be best represented by the biggest excuse of them all 'Hindu rate of growth'.
Germany(Which was highly developed nation even before WW2) and Korea, were split to become proxies for USSR and US. A move in which people lost a more than they gained. We opted to be non allied. The magic is not capitalism. The magic is in being a proxy state to a super power(The very thing we gained independence from).
>>1990s onwards we have made our lives so much better, and the shit didn't have to be so bad for our forefathers and parents.
You are looking at the results, without looking at the ingredients and ecosystem required to produce those results. Capitalism doesn't work the way you think. There is no magical wand, or a policy incantation that can fix things without supporting infrastructure and ecosystem. There is no way, no magical mantra to pull out thousands of non existent engineers/doctors/skilled professionals out of the nothing in 1947, in an country where 95% were farmers, and the remainder in non productive jobs. There is also no way without this absent workforce and non existent money for you to build hundreds of industries and businesses. In a non existent government institution to collect taxes, and then build road and other supporting infrastructure. Even the US after all these years heavily relies on skilled professionals from foreign countries coming to their country and builds the ecosystem for them to immigrate, and those skilled professional go there because they are constantly building those infrastructure to support it.
You are inheriting a country, which doesn't have a proper working administration. Let alone institutions to collect taxes, or plan economies at scale. Nor do you have access to skilled talent, or ecosystem or infrastructure to build industries.
Yet despite all this we have crawled our way out.
The only reason why you see the free market reforms in 92 even worked is because, there was an industrial base in South India, and there were engineering colleges that had been developed over time, producing engineers and industries, which can now be scaled to a larger economy.
>>All Indians do is give excuses for why India was poor, but nearly all their excuses can be best represented by the biggest excuse of them all 'Hindu rate of growth'.
Or somebody like you should show us, how one could actually create stuff out of literal nothing.
West Germany was an exception because the US, primarily, poured vast resources into it as a bulwark against communist expansion, both ideologically and militarily, into Western Europe.
The reasons why that doesn't apply to East Germany are, well, pretty obvious.
> Similarly, Korean split was another one of those examples.
Well, yes, there is a similarity between South Korea and Germany...
Well, West Germany is an exception because it gotten a Cold War ally and darling immediately after the war.
They're also very favorably placed in the center of Europe, and were given lots of help to try to rebuild their economy (their sugar daddy allowing them to pay only minimal war recuperations, cheap migrant hands from Turkey and Greece, etc).
They also didn't have instability of the kind India faced post-colonialism, since the ex British rulers (as is their standard mode of operation everywhere, from Israel/Palestine to Cyprus/Northern Cyprus etc.) used a divide and conquer tactic, playing Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc one against the other.
And of course it's not just the starting state (Germany being bombed, India being poor) but also things like human capital, etc. Germany, post WWII, had far more educated people, industrial experience and infrastructure (as a percentage) compared to India.
As for East Germany, it was depended on USSR which didn't have the same kind of economic resources as the US, nor did other communist countries it mostly traded with.
>All Indians do is give excuses for why India was poor
Yes, those lazy Indians, always up to no good. There are no historical reasons, just lazy, ignorant, people.
/s
>>Yes, those lazy Indians, always up to no good.
Indians is being used as catch all and you are trying to misrepresent his statement. No one said Indians are lazy, that would be affront to my own family and friends. But Indians need to own up the kind of leadership they have elected and the subsequent results.
