The protectionism, aligned with the anti-colonialism, I believe make it politically feasible enough to push through other aspects of the model; like land and market reform.
I think the sheer size of India makes export-led economic expansion impractical for the country as a whole - such a strategy could be used to develop a few states or a few cities - but not the whole country. Transport infrastructure, local resources and the scale of the world market compared to the scale of India, make it impossible.
Protectionism would absolutely be required for developing India.
Market reform... I very much doubt that this is nearly as important as economic journalists tend to say. I suspect that it is more important that whatever government exists to regulate the market is as honest as possible.
Corruption really drags down economic growth.
IMO, the things required to develop the country are land reform, heavy focus on education and packing people into the cities.
The Indian governments at all levels have, for decades, subsidized rural life, keeping too many people in rural areas where their labour and talents cannot be efficiently employed, and stunting the cities.
There's also the whole problem of caste, which has seriously impeded economic growth in India. But beyond encouraging urbanization and education more (both of which demonstrably weaken the boundaries between castes), I am not sure what a government could do to handle the situation any better than in OTL. Nor can I think of any single cultural PoDs that would do much to weaken the caste system, though this is probably due to my relative ignorance of this period in Indian history...
fasquardon