&gt;&gt;In 1950s India was actually called &quot;Hope of Asia&quot;, even by the Colonialists who left them.<p>Truly so, We didn&#x27;t have the great famine like China(<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Great_Chinese_Famine" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Great_Chinese_Famine</a>) where close to 45 million people died. We didn&#x27;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&#x27;t eradicated poverty and hunger yet, but neither has any country of our scale.<p>&gt;&gt;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 &quot;natural confederation&quot;<p>Why wouldn&#x27;t they copy USSR? It was a economic model that is paying off Russia till date. Russia went from a peasant state, under Tsar&#x27;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.<p>&gt;&gt;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.<p>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&#x27;s), management colleges(IIM&#x27;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.<p>This is how governments think. Priorities of a business family would be way lower on my list.<p>Nehru has already done more nation&#x2F;institution building work, than any Prime minister will ever do.<p>&gt;&gt;counter examples for not following Nehruvian Socialism, makes me feel that intellectually we are in two completely different dimensions.<p>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.<p>You can&#x27;t build a F-16, when you don&#x27;t even know&#x2F;have skills to repair a bicycle.