Yea I agree, severely doubt he'd allow for privatisation to occur at least that early on. And yea I think he's definitely not going to lose seats in the '67 election in the way Indira did.
And I agree, it would be favourable for investors. But India would still have to ensure the ease of doing business would be favourable, thus continuous effort on cutting red tape and bureaucracy and the like. That would also have the added benefit of Indian businesses also being able to grow. Air India likely won't be nationalised, which would be a massive boon for the airline and allow it to have a reputation like perhaps Singapore Airlines by the present day.
Ah yea, the fasting/one meal on Mondays. He really did lead from the front on that. Plus his dedicated efforts at keeping prices reasonable and cut profiteering.
You know from what I have read, definitely see him resolving the planning commission into something akin to Niti Aayog. If he was that keen to move from control to incentives, a move like this would have been right up his alley. Again, he'd likely face internal pushback but his track record showed he would have been able to handle this.
The Freight Equalization Policy was something even I missed, good catch on that
@SpacePotato117. But yea, certainly would have allowed for this states to develop at a much more natural pace. If these states grow at the rate the South Indian states did, then already we would see an Indian economy significantly larger than OTL based on that alone.
Referring to Biju Patnaik's rescue was me highlighting Shastri being canny; he could use the assets he had in front of him to gain a desirable outcome. This bodes well for hypothetical future meetings with other world leaders. I don't think I was speaking of a shift post the postponement of the meet with Johnson, more that he had met "Kosygin, Brezhnev and Mikoyan for lengthy, frank and cordial talks" in the spring-summer of '65. And no doubt India's position on Vietnam likely played a role in the meeting being postponed.
Ah but it was only for the MiG-21s. Who knows what more Shastri could have managed to obtain had he stayed in power longer. I do agree that obtaining core engine tech would likely still remain a few years down the line, maybe a year or two earlier than OTL at best. I agree on the domestic arms industry, but this might be challenging to pursue for the airforce, considering keeping parity with Pakistan in the air was important, so taking the hit on capabilities to develop indigenous versions may be a bit of a tough sell. I could however see Shastri push forward for that anyway tho.
I think if Shastri surviving butterflies away RFK's assassination, then India has a good shot at maintaining decent relations with America as it would have a leader who viewed India at least somewhat favourably. His aide got married
wearing a Nehru jacket in '67, so there is that lol. Another Democratic term would thus help India maintain friendly relations with America while Pakistan likely suffers still. Nixon and RFK were very different men.
It's known Nixon didn't like a lot of people. Nixon also ironically tended to like men he viewed as "manly" and "charismatic", which is what
Texas Two Step is based upon, where he nominates John Connally to be his VP for those exact reasons. He also liked Yahya Khan, the leader of Pakistan which likely coloured his view of India - it was apparently Yahya who facilitated the whole "Nixon goes to China" trip. Yahya was also Nixon's drinking buddy so I am sure that helped! I got this from an economist article,
"Nixon, a man of few friends, was notably fond of Pakistan's military ruler, Yahya Khan, a gruff, dim-witted, whiskey-drinking general. Nixon compared the Pakistanis favorably to Abraham Lincoln. By contrast he despised India's wheedling civilian politicians, reserving a particular dislike for Gandhi, whom in private he frequently called a 'bitch' and 'witch'".
Kissinger also helped shape Nixon's views on the matter,
"Ultimately, Mr. Kissinger did much to set America's course. He argued that America should pay no heed to domestic horrors in Pakistan, saying "you can't go to war over refugees", and warned that India was a greater threat to international order. Indian "bastards", he agreed with Nixon, needed a "mass famine" to cut them down to size."
So yea, not quite sure what Shastri's going to be able to build with Nixon if he somehow still comes into power, but the butterflies'll probably mean RFK survives and thus becomes President.
Shuffling off Tank to the civilian sector may allow India to still keep him and make use of his expertise once he is no longer able to railroad such decisions. An Indian Embraer or Bombardier would certainly be quite the positive butterfly. Who knows, maybe some face time with Shastri may even convince him to change his mind.
Ah good point on Ford actually, keep forgetting it was the oil shocks which made American cars at least able to compete with other worldwide manufacturers. And Fiat makes a lot of sense actually, who can forget all those Fiat taxis that used to grace city streets. I'd think it would likely be Japan, given how it was the Japanese and Koreans who were the first to invest into the Indian market in the 80s, but I am not sure if they were as able to invest in India in the late 60's/early 70s compared to a decade later. I have also never heard of Aravind cars. It would be quite the story for them to survive and become a big name to rival Mahindra and Tata.
Makes sense on the dating of the nuclear test. And I think India joining the treaty as a weapons state makes the most sense, not quite sure why this has not happened in OTL but I can guess.
Interesting note on the judiciary. Part of me is worried that without the emergency, the judiciary and other institutions may not be strengthened. The judiciary did end up moving to defend its turf because of the Emergency while people also took to the streets to protest and thus highlighted their desire to protect the democratic institutions of India. Although perhaps this may be balanced out by all the negatives not occurring and as you said more creative licenses for authors.
Could the butterflies allow him to live? What would happen if he lived? Would India have functioning thorium reactors by today?
Well there is the theory that the CIA had him killed, so if that was the case then I think he would still end up dead. But then again, the same theory implies the CIA killed off Shastri for the same reason (to prevent India from obtaining nukes). Therefore if Shastri doesn't die then perhaps Bhabha survives too.
As for what happens if he survives, I want to say yes to thorium but it's quite a complicated journey to get to Thorium reactors and I am not sure even with Homi Bhabha surviving India would manage this. But I do think the Indian programme would be better run and actually manage to achieve some of its nuclear energy goals compared to the weak showing it has had in OTL.