Most comments don't give you a right perspective. Its really not protectionism, or socialism. India started out very badly after Independence. It had nothing t

Most comments don't give you a right perspective. Its really not protectionism, or socialism. India started out very badly after Independence. It had nothing to show for, infact very little in terms of a trained workforce, quality human resources, industries, scientific enterprise, economy or anything for that matter. By the time British left, they had looted India to the very last paisa. The first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru had a great vision and equally good execution abilities. They faced a near impossible task of uniting a already politically, ethnically and linguistically divided nation. They federalized India on the lines of language, thereby uniting it under one union. They set institutions going for sound administration and bureaucracy. Beyond all these political problems there is problem of nation building. Or Growth as you would call it. To build quality infrastructure you need taxes, to collect taxes you need industries, to build industries you need trained human resources, to get trained human resources you need to build good universities and academic institutions. You realize you are stuck is a chicken-egg problem. The only solution most post-colonial states employed was to incrementally move upwards by building self reliance and capability. 5 year planning commissions were common. The corner stone of Nehruvian economics was: 1. Build quality educational institutions. 2. Quality educational institutions build quality human resources. 3. Establish state owned(or partially at-least) industries to develop indigenous, manufacturing, research and production capabilities, in all walks and branches of economy. 4. Use 2 and 3 to eventually build private enterprise. 5. Collect taxes using 4. 6. Build infrastructure and other things in 1. and 2. using taxes collected so far at 5. We were in the process of 'getting there'. Irrigation networks were laid, nuclear weapons were built, space programs were in motion. In fact India had indigenous presence in everything imaginable. However the politics of India was never stable. Beyond all this 'capitalism' suddenly got fashionable. Why work and build indigenously when you could just pay and import? In fact most of India's current predicaments arise out of abandonment of Nehru's path. We can't seem to build anything good. No good roads, no planned cities, no safe drinking water, frequent power cuts... the list just goes endless. Sure you now have cheap mobile phones and internet. But a city like Bangalore was a heaven to live in during the times of Nehruvian economics. Today you reach home from office with a lot of dust in the mouth. Ironically the same people who admire freeways, dams and social security in the US, which are the outcomes socialist policies. Hate the same in India. In fact most people in India have barely a clue what socialism or capitalism actually mean. Except that they know if they hate something that automatically gets classified as socialist or communist. EDIT: Looks like anything positive about Nehru is a magnet for downvotes.