Population and the Economy

India at Independence inherited an economy whose main features reflected two centuries of subservience to British interests and, particularly in the twentieth century, the development of its own capitalism. The economic task of the new Congress government was to set India on the path of a different style of economic progress which would at long last relieve its people from millennia of poverty and make India internationally respected and truly independent. The years prior to Independence witnessed many political conflicts on economic policy both within and outside the Congress party — the relative roles of the state and the private sector, of heavy and small scale manufacturing (on which Nehru and Gandhi were in some degree of opposition), of industry and agriculture. Most of these conflicts were unresolved when the first moves towards planning were made — and to some extent they still are.