Lack of a critical perspective

Here one may say that the new Five Year Plan lacked a critical perspective. There was no analysis of

• What went wrong in the past?

• Why industrialization did not improve conditions of masses?

• How in the future industrialization can achieve what it failed to achieve in the past?

• Is it possible to develop the entire nation in the proposed framework of development and modernization?

A critic may say that the Plan only paid a lip service to needs of people and used the idea of development for continuity of colonial policies, i.e., to further the same colonial policies which were initiated by the British rulers. The modern elite – economic and knowledge – could not have thought of any other alternative to development. The result was the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. The policies favored largely the metropolitan elite. Though it was also thought that planning is not about decisions regarding revenue and budget outlays only but it is also about creating a right institutional space and achieving all round development of people keeping in view the conditions and aspirations of people, from the perspective of planning development was primarily an economic goal. The planners were not so much sensitive to social goals of development even when it was clear that economic development may worsen the social situation.