Module 8: An argument for modernization and development
  Lecture 23: Modernization and Development in Post-independence India: Nehruvian Model of Industrial Socialism
 

Nehru’s vision of development

Nehru opted for industrial socialism. He was greatly influenced by developments in China and USSR and he also wanted to improve quality of life of Indian masses as fast as possible. Nehru stood for scientific and industrial development and despised unwholesome traditions, religious bigotry and superstitions. In this respect he is vividly influenced by the Marxist theory of dialectical materialism. Yet he wanted to achieve what all had been achieved in China and USSR in a non-violent, peaceful manner in India. He also had people’s mandate for this. Nehru did everything he could to establish scientific and technical institutions in India and promote scientific tamper among masses. To him scientific education would do several things to India:

(a) it will lead to economic development through generation or adoption of new technology;

(b) it will contribute to urbanization;

(c) it will attack the superstitions and social evils; and

(d) it will produce a humanistic thinking, very necessary in a religiously and culturally plural society.

In Discovery of India, written between 1942 and 1945 in Ahmadnagar Fort Prison, Nehru said (Nehru, 1972, 406):

I am all for tractors and big machinery, and I am convinced that the rapid industrialization of India is essential to relieve the pressure on land, to combat poverty and raise standard of living, for defence and a variety of other purposes. But I am equally convinced that the most careful planning and adjustment are necessary if we are to reap the full benefit of industrialization and avoid many of its dangers. This planning is necessary to-day in all countries of arrested growth, like China and India, which have strong traditions of their own. In China I was greatly attracted to the Industrial Co-operatives – the Indusco movement – and it seems to me that some such movement is peculiarly suited to India. It would fit in with the Indian background, give a democratic basis to small industry, and develop the co-operative habit. It could be made to complement big industry. It must be remembered that, however rapid might be the development of heavy industry in India, a vast field will remain open to small and cottage industries. Even in Soviet Russia owner-producer co-operatives have played an important part in industrial growth.