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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes in general, and particularly in the university system, tended to deteriorate over time and there
was massive brain drain, mainly to the US, of a significant part of the best talent produced in the
country. Yet, it is an achievement of considerable significance, as increasingly today ‘knowledge’
is becoming the key factor of production and there is a global awareness of the necessity to focus
on education and human resource development. That India can even think of participating in the
globalization process in today’s world of high technology, with any degree of competitiveness
and equality, is largely due to the spadework done since independence, particularly the great
emphasis laid on human resource development in the sphere of science and technology.
In the enthusiasm to support the very necessary economic reforms being undertaken by India
today (since 1991), it has become fashionable in some circles to run down the economic achievements
of the earlier periods, particularly the Nehruvian era. Nothing could be more short-sighted and a
historical. It is the Nehruvian era that created the basic physical and human infrastructure, which
was a precondition for independent modern development. Today’s possibilities are a function of
the achievements of the earlier period; they have not arisen despite them.
Also, the Nehruvian phase has to be seen in the global historical context of that period. As Dr
Manmohan Singh, India’s prime minister and brilliant economist, who as finance minister
inaugurated the structural adjustment programme for India in 1991, was to acknowledge: ‘In
1960, if you had asked anybody which country would be on top of the league of the third world
in 1996 or 1997, India was considered to be the front runner. There was a consensus among a wide
variety of economists, including prominent ones in the West—W.W. Rostow, Rosenstein-Rodan,
Wilfred Mandelbaum, George Rosen, Ian Little, Brian Reddaway to name just a few—that the
direction of the Indian planning effort was a very positive one with great potential. (It was common
to eulogize the democratic Indian path as opposed to the model followed by totalitarian China.)
There was, in fact, a dialectical relationship between the evolution of contemporary development
theory and the Indian experience.
Surely, over time, changes needed to be made, learning from the experience of this novel effort to
bring about industrial transformation in the modern (mid-twentieth century) environment of a
post-colonial backward country, while fully maintaining a functioning democracy. Clearly, some
of the policy instruments—industrial licensing, price and distribution controls, import restrictions
shielding inefficient domestic producers, dependence on an increasingly inefficient public sector,
etc.—needed to be given up or amended. Also, changes in the nature of world capitalism called for
novel ways of seeking economic opportunity, which, inter alia, involved a greater opening up to
the world economy. However, the possibility of such a change got short-circuited by a series of
crises faced by India in the mid-1960s and changes in the international and internal political
situation which forced her to move further in a protectionist, inward-looking and dirigiste direction.
11.4 Summary

• The Indian constitution thus formally confers an enormous range of powers on the President,
but these are to be exercised in accordance with the advice of the cabinet. But the President
is by no means a figurehead and the political situation may provide many occasions for an
activist President.
• However, even in otherwise stable situations, it has happened that presidents have, on
occasion, either because of personal ambition or out of a sense of duty to the constitution,
exercised discretionary power.
• The 44th Amendment has given him the authority to ask the council of ministers to reconsider
its advice, but if the council reiterates its position, the President must accept the advice.
• In other- areas, the powers of the President are quite clearly defined. When a bill is presented
to him, under Article 111, he may withhold his assent and, if he desires, return it to parliament
for reconsideration. If both houses again pass it and send it back to him, he is obliged to give
his assent. In the case of money bills, however, he has no discretion. In any case, he has no
absolute power of veto.

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