Nehru’s Legacy
I tend to be libertarian-leaning in my economic views. I believe liberalization has been good for India and that we need more broad-based liberalization (and not, what Amit Varma calls, ”mai-baap” government) to reduce poverty. I also believe Nehruvian economics may not have been the right path for India to take after its independence.
But I agree with Abi that Nehru took a “middle path” in his economic decisions. I will not blame Nehru for his decisions; I don’t think the “blame” for the current state of India rests with him. For one, it wasn’t clear at that time that a laissez faire or a capitalist economy was a better choice than the socialist path. Secondly, Nehru did believe in a “mixed economy”. India did not go as strongly on a socialist path until Indira Gandhi. Thirdly, although Nehru was a socialist — or perhaps because Nehru was a socialist — he put significant investments into science and scientific institutions. It is a failure of the subsequent administrations that we, as a nation, did not build on these investments.
That we still continue espousing strongly socialist economic policies is anachronistic at best, criminal at worst.
I agree that Indira Gandhi was more to blame than Nehru due to her large-scale nationalization programmes and strengthening of the license raj. But Nehru put in motion those kinds of policies and Indira’s actions were merely a natural progression. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 but his foreign policy failures also don’t give him much room to claim credit for anything positive that served India in the long term. Except for establishing mere five IITs when in fact it should have been more on lines of NSF or NIH letting private universities to flourish.
I am ambivalent about Nehru. He dreamt big, but his actions failed to live up to his dreams.
He dreamt about universal primary education. India’s literacy rate is dismal.
He dreamt about a strong, peaceful nation. 1962 lay rest to that claim.
He dreamt about equality amongst the population. Half a century later, we still feel the need to increase quotas for some sections of the society.
So, yes, I do agree that a number of India’s problems may be attributed to Nehru. But the fact that 40 years after his death, a lot of problems are still unsolved makes me give him a bit more credit for the things he did right.
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