It is a measure of India’s rising confidence that there is now a critical gaze upon all aspects of our past and present. One area that has received attention recently is the performance of the economy in early independent India, and Jawaharlal Nehru’s role in it. Into the 21st century, we are in a good place to examine these, for three reasons. We have the quantitative methods that allow us to identify turning points in economic history without resorting to judgement; we have the theoretical models that help us understand how an economy grows; and we have the experience of the rest of Asia to compare our own past policies and achievements with.

For Nehru, the single-most important goal of economic policy was to increase the level of income, which was unacceptably low for the overwhelming majority of Indians. This is evident in the statement he made in parliament in May 1956 when the main vehicle of the Nehru-Mahalanobis strategy for development, the Second Five-Year Plan, was launched. He said “The whole philosophy… is to take advantage of every possible way of growth and not to do something which suits some doctrinaire theory or imagine we have grown because we have satisfied some text-book maxim of a hundred years ago.” It would be difficult to detect ideology in this; actually, it is not only pragmatic but cautioned against taking an ideological approach to the economy. And what was the impact of Nehru’s stated objective? In one sphere at least, it was nothing........

© Indian Express