THINK!

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the First Prime Minister of India, and his policies are on trial in 2008. Nehru made certain choices for India and the people have since paid a price for those or enjoyed the benefits. He was a romantic, but in certain ways a pragmatic too! He was a staunch democrat with a large ego. Nehru was fondly called “Chacha Nehru” by the children of India. I personally had the privilege of meeting with him in person at his official residence, the ‘Teen Murti Bhavan’ in New Delhi. Nehru started his term of Prime Ministership as a pragmatist but slowly changed to a blue-blooded socialist. He created the Planning Commission and established a “command and control” economy. He tolerated the existing private sector in non-essential areas. His apologists called this a ‘Mixed Economy’. Nehru had no such qualms in calling his policies, socialist. The so called “Bombay Plan” was conceived by the private sector.

Today, since capitalism is under assault, it is bound to raise the question: “Was Nehru right?” Sooner or later the economists as well as the historians are going to re-examine different economic philosophies and their propagators. Nehru and his brand of mixed socialism is bound to be one of them. China and India are destined to have significant influence on the new ‘Global Economic Order’. The Anglo-Saxon Finance is out of fashion! People’s Republic of China followed an orthodox communist ideology for the first 30 years (1949 – 1979). Deng Xiaoping completely rejected this form of economic strangulation and replaced it with ‘Authoritarian Capitalism’ in 1979. India on the other hand lurched towards border-line communism under Indira Gandhi. The Janata Party defeated the Congress Party in 1977 and started the process opening up the economy. It was not until 1991 that India saw some form of market economy and faced limited international competition.

Sixty one years after the independence from the British, India remains a ‘Mixed Economy’. Even in 2008, we can see the heavy hand of the government. It controls most of the mining, oil & gas, steel, shipping, railways, defense production, airlines and even banking. The government even owns hotels and telecommunications, but the private sector is inching forward. It might take a whole generation before India could be recognized as a free market economy. People like me have been frustrated by the slow pace of economic reforms. Suddenly, it does not look so bad after all! The so called ‘Capitalistic Economies’ are turning socialist. Investment Banks are being nationalized in the United States and Commercial Banks are being taken over in Europe. There is also a wide-spread speculation about the ‘Auto Industry’ to be bailed-out by the government in America. If this is not socialism then what is? So much for your free-market capitalism! Republicans should hang their heads in shame. Let us see how long they would keep their markets open to competition.