India's success formula endures: Let's not falter

We have faced myriad challenges in the past and emerged unscathed. With the world in flux again, India must combine strategic autonomy with astute economic management

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When the world awoke on 15 August 1947, it found a new independent nation that held out hope for all colonially exploited countries, became an enduring inspiration for the democratic ideal and succeeded remarkably in uniting a diverse population—divided by religion, caste and language—into a coherent political union.

Impoverished by colonial surplus extraction, the Indian landmass had been reduced from one of the richest places on earth to one of the poorest. India's political leadership had to craft an economic policy informed by the nation's capital scarcity, an abundance of untrained labour and widespread incidence of crushing poverty. Leading members of the private sector also advocated—through the Bombay Plan—that the state bear the primary task of building the nation's core economic structure, which could then become a durable platform for private sector entrepreneurship.