Journal Press India^®

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Pulapre Balakrishnan focused on positive features of the growth in Nehruvian era, in a desperate attempt to rescue it from its critics.  However, his comments on growth rate of Indian economy during the Nehruvian period in a comparative context needs to be analyzed with care. In his enthusiasm to unearth the merits of the Nehruvian era, he lost his focus on growth and entered the area of transformation without defining the concept of transformation of an economy. This is despite the fact that a well-known concept of structural transformation has been formalized by Kuznet. He goes to the extent of arguing in favour of rate of population growth as a better indicator of the extent and nature of economic transformation as compared to any estimated rise in rate of growth as growth rate.Even when growth rates in agriculture in the Nehruvian period emerged higher as compared to colonial era, the moot point is whether it emerged capable of feeding our population. Already existing scholarly studies provided evidence to the contrary. A similar problem crops up when he argues that growth in Nehru era was distinctly Indian, independent on foreign aid.

Keywords

growth, transformation, Nehruvian era

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