A precocious, cleavaged democracy that starts out poor will almost certainly distrust the private sector. Reinforcing this notion was the prevailing intellectual zeitgeist of socialism.
The founders of India wanted to “build the country” by developing industry that would make India economically, as well as politically, independent.
The private sector had conspicuously failed to do this under colonial rule, not only in India but in every other newly independent nation, giving rise to severe doubts as to whether it could ever do so.
In contrast, the example of the Soviet Union, which had transformed itself from an agricultural nation to an industrial powerhouse ....
