Its fashionable to criticize Nehru for all our ills. But you need to think a little hard to be rational and realistic. Britishers came to India for business and trade and what they became and when they left we all know. In 1947 the overwhelming majority opinion was against inviting ang foreign power to invest in India after its experience of the britishers. We needed to create large scale industries on our own as no private intervention was possible in such a large scale. At the time of independence we didn't even produce a needle.Nehru had a vision. He was not a rigid man. At that time he gave a call to develop scientific temper. All the atomic research, IITs and IIMs were started in his time. Mind you, Only one power had become a superpower in such short span of time and that was USSR. It took her only 30 years to achieve that status. US and Britain took nearly 150 years to achieve this sucess. Not only India but every country that got independence follwed that policy including China. Had Nehru lived more he would have certainly changed his economic policy. It was his daughter, Indira who mad a mess of Indian economy. Reforms should have started slowly back in mid 70s itself.
