India’s Economy: From Where to Where?

The economic policies that our founding fathers conceived for India defy easy characterization. They were an exasperating combination of simultaneously supporting and stifling private entrepreneurship. The barriers erected against foreign competition served to coddle domestic enterprise. But the private sector was simultaneously kept out of large areas of economic activity. In particular, the so-called “commanding heights”, such as steel, petrochemicals, and heavy electricals, were commandeered by the public sector. In yet other sectors, private entrepreneurs were allowed in, but heavily constrained by regulations on how, how much, and what they could do, and where.