We seek to ‘correct’ Nehruvian ‘development model’, foreign policy: Jaishankar

Questioning the direction of country’s development and foreign policy during the Nehruvian-era, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said we seek to correct the ‘development model’ of that era and also the ‘foreign policy’.

Jaishankar said a “Nehru development model” inevitably produced a “Nehru foreign policy”.  

“We seek to correct that abroad, just as we try to reform the consequences of the model at home. In fact, the resistance to one is based on an attachment to the other,” he added.

Certainly, after 2014, there has been a vigorous effort towards course correction– and it still remains an uphill task, the Minster said while he was speaking at an event of a book “The Nehru Development Model” authored by Prof Arvind Panagariya.

Ministry of External Affairs shared Jaishankar’s remarks on its website on Sunday.

The Minister added that for more than three decades now, there is actually a national consensus, that the Nehruvian development model eventually failed the country. “Yet, there is a reluctance to confidently explore alternatives. As a result, we usually end up doing the reforms we must, rarely the reforms we should,” he added.

Jaishankar cited what John Foster Dulles said in 1947, “In India, Soviet Communism exercises a strong influence through the interim Hindu Government.”

The Minister added how he often asked himself whether Dulles was altogether wrong on this matter and in Prof Panagariya’s book, a substantial answer to that concern is found.

There was a strong ideological drive to advance a particular economic model for India that had just gained its freedom, said Jaishankar. “The belief was modulated from time to time, but never fundamentally changed. Its root cause was an analysis that the only counter to imperialism lay in socialism”.

The Minister cited how the Nehruvian development model was centred around heavy industry. “Now, this may have worked for the USSR; or at least it appeared to do so then. The problem was that India was not the USSR,” Jaishankar argued.

He said, in the book, Panagariya suggests that Nehru’s choices set India on a deterministic path. The model and its accompanying narratives permeated our politics, bureaucracy, planning system, judiciary, public space including media, and most of all, teaching.

Linking the post-1991 era of economic liberalisation, Jaishankar said India has benefited from greater openness in the last 33 years. But the situation today is very much more complex than before.

“We live in an era of weaponised economics, that is aggravated by increasingly technology-centric growth and high data sensitivity,” the Minister said adding the concepts, therefore, today are less of openness, and more of resiliency, reliability, redundancy and trust.

The Minister also mentioned how ‘Atma Nirbharta’ – India’s quest for self-reliance—should not be taken as a synonym for protectionism. It is actually a call to think and act for ourselves, as much as it is to ensure national security.