The Licence Raj - Paperback

by Amar Maini (Author)

The Licence Raj remembers India's tryst with socialism in the years after Independence.

The dream of a new Indian economy was, even by 1947, an old one. Students of Elphinstone College, Bombay had written the first critiques of the British Raj a century earlier. A professor of mathematics, Dadabhai Naoroji then told the world of the drain of India's wealth under British rule. The judge, Mahadev Ranade wanted to create an Indian approach to the study of economics. The civil servant, Romesh Dutt was a patron of the swadeshi movement, which worked to make in India again. After the First World War, Mohandas Gandhi sought to revive long forgotten village industries. And on the eve of the Second World War, a young Jayaprakash Narayan tried to convince his fellow Congressmen of the merits of socialism.

Jawaharlal Nehru was also a socialist and when he became prime minister set about remaking India according to a "socialistic pattern of society". He was assisted by an old acquaintance from Calcutta, the scientist Prasanta Mahalanobis. They would soon have some unexpected advisers however. Just as the British departed, the Americans arrived.