This has been debated to death. There is no evidence to prove this was wrong.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>If you wish to look what has become of other countries with over zealous ideas look at Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka.<p>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.