One can always make hypothetical cases about what could have happened if so and so had happened.

Had India became West`s vast market, they would have also found it sensible to put up some manufacturing centres here. Our policy of shutting them out caused us more hardship than it did to them. It was our ego which prevented them from doing business with us. In addition, we could not afford to anger USSR which had become our arms supplier. Where would we run for spare parts?

True, China and Soviet Union were like India and Pakistan in those days. As you rightly pointed out, China was also reaching out to the West just as the West was trying to neuralize the Indo-Soviet axis by empowering China.

My point is that India got it wrong every single time, albeit with good intentions. our misfortune.

Basically the western countries wanted India as a vast market for their products, and did not want it to develop the heavy industry and become self-reliant. And I am not arguing here that the collaboration with the Soviet bloc did not have it`s disadvantages.

That is again too simplistic an assessment. Wiki: By the late 1950s, relations between China and the Soviet Union had become so divisive that in 1960, the Soviets unilaterally withdrew their advisers from China.....By 1969, relations with Moscow were so tense that fighting erupted along their common border. Following the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and clashes in 1969 on the Sino-Soviet border, Chinese competition with the Soviet Union increasingly reflected concern over China`s own strategic position. China then lessened its anti-Western rhetoric and began developing formal diplomatic relations with West European nations."

CX: I got the 1947 valuation of the rupee as equivalent to the dollar from Wikipedia. Here is the data from there:

Valuation history
INR Value against USD
Year Exchange rate (rupees per US$)
1947 1.000
1952 5.000
1970 7.576
1975 8.409
1980 7.887
1985 12.369
1990 17.504
1995 32.427
2000 45.000
2006 48.336
2007 (Oct) 38.48

I didn`t know that Western countries had refused to help India and so we had to turn to USSR for assistance. But could it also be that westerners had understood that Nehru preferred USSR maybe due to proximity, and was interested in taking help from both sides.

Must really read up more before speculating! Thanks for all these excerpts, by the way!

It is a vast subject, to understand the pressures on India in the first years of independence. Will study more deeply and get back to you.

Anyway my bomb is still not ready.

For a farmer barely able to earn 10k a year if one member of his family gets 15000 a year from MNREGA (considering wage of Rs 150) he/she will see it as a huge gift and feel forever indebted to the person who brought this. Illusion created is Congress gives them this. WRONG. You and I give them this by paying our share of taxes. But Congress will forever earn votes of that family. MNREGA is a long term scheme aimed at buying votes over a long term. Assured power.

The educated, the working class is hated in India. A person working 12 hours a day in the market to feed his family in a city is considered a criminal as he works hard and earns.

They(GOVT) wants Indian public to confuse and wants to sell farmers land to corporate world and in between they can make money also.They are working on their plan.
After 10 years Indian labour class will sleep whole day and they will still make guaranteed 500 per day,where as educated people who know whom to Vote will be jobless.

So confusion is in Indians not in those politicians.


Sanjay

In another blow to the story of "diplomatic isolation" a favorite of people who hate equality politics to please the dynasty. The socialists communists and so on with a single agenda to divide India. Read below and keep the burnol ready.

US Congressional, business team to meet Modi in Gujarat

Aaron Schock, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois who will lead the delegation, is scheduled to travel to Ahmedabad to meet Modi on Thursday, according to an e-mail from the lawmaker’s office.

Link - http://t.in.com/5ytE

Note - More than i like Modi i hate the Congress and leftism lovers. Sorry folks bear with me.

"Wishing you all a Happy and Colorful HOLI".........


Sanjay

Reliance may take support at 790.80....788...


Sanjay

amazing, you are probably first time - put up a to the face clear post. No body (read the white coloured and politicos) bother about the agri, the biggest joke is, PM MMS wants agri to be handed over to corporate farming and ask agri labourers to migrate to industry jobs(with whatso ever education and the skills they have).

Confusion is the name of this Govt.