ATLANTA -- For most of India's postcolonial era, the views guiding economic policy and those expressed by opinion makers reflected a deep-seated contempt for markets. Despite the failings of socialist economic policies at home and the successes of market reform elsewhere, India has been slow to embrace capitalism.
The socialist instincts of its founding fathers are reinforced by an embedded legal obligation that dominates India's modern political culture. These conditions impede skeptical introspection into how policy choices contributed to persistent poverty and lagging domestic economic growth.
Mahatma Gandhi embraced the economic autarky imposed on many socialist countries. Central planning was a key feature introduced by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who first became prime minister in 1966, embedded socialism in India's constitution during a period of martial law.