Indian Economic Miracle Post Independence.

This is pretty much impossible, even if we ignore the problem of rampant corruption and bad governance, the problem is that economic growth is eaten up by population growth. The One Child policy in China will give problem in the next few decades, but it enable China to become a middle income country, as growth was no longer eaten up by population growth.
 
This is pretty much impossible, even if we ignore the problem of rampant corruption and bad governance, the problem is that economic growth is eaten up by population growth. The One Child policy in China will give problem in the next few decades, but it enable China to become a middle income country, as growth was no longer eaten up by population growth.

The population growth in India has slowed almost as quickly as that of China. This is true when comparing China to any comparable country - they've all experienced falling TFRs in line with economic growth.

As such, after adjusting for economic factors, education levels and levels of urbanization, the One Child policy does not appear to have had any significant effect on Chinese population growth.

Crazy right?

The real way for India to bring down TFR faster is to urbanize faster and to get more girls into school.

fasquardon
 
If India's second Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, hadn't died in 1966, Indira Gandhi would never have come to power. Result: no wave of nationalizations, no Soviet tilt, fewer autarkic restrictions on the imports and the free market. Shastri and the Old Congress Right would have remained in power. It's possible you get an earlier opening to Western markets and an earlier liberalization, which would speed up India's development by a couple of decades.

Getting it to S. Korean levels of development is much harder though. Reasons include scale, the fact that Korea had a stronger administration and better health and education sectors (a legacy of the Japanese) than the British left India, and geography. Something roughly on the level of Thailand or present-day China is quite possible though - in other words, something "Upper Middle Income" or so.
 
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Thank you for the responses everyone.

From what I gather, protectionism and the dissolution of the Licence Raj, coupled with large scale investment in infrastructure, education spending, and widespread land reform, would make for the best case scenario which India can attain economically?

It's obviously not akin, in most aspects, to the structure which facilitated the rise of the Asian tigers, but can it produce growth which is comparable?

I have a rough idea with regards to answering that, but I want to know what you guys think first.
 
From what I gather, protectionism and the dissolution of the Licence Raj, coupled with large scale investment in infrastructure, education spending, and widespread land reform, would make for the best case scenario which India can attain economically?

Yes. And emphasis on the land reform and education.

It's obviously not akin, in most aspects, to the structure which facilitated the rise of the Asian tigers, but can it produce growth which is comparable?

IMO India would always be doomed to grow more slowly to China (which has wayyyyy more coal and more conveniently located coal) or the Asian Tigers (all of which are much smaller than India and with more of their countries near the sea).

fasquardon
 
Yes. And emphasis on the land reform and education.

Well, time to do some reading on whether or not it's both fiscally and politically feasible.

IMO India would always be doomed to grow more slowly to China (which has wayyyyy more coal and more conveniently located coal) or the Asian Tigers (all of which are much smaller than India and with more of their countries near the sea).

fasquardon

Apparently, China's coal reserves are predominantly located in the North East, and not the population centers which encompass the coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China#/media/File:Map_of_China_coal_resources.svg

In any case, the development of India's electric capacity will be of great import. Any ideas on what shape that might take?

Basically, would importing coal or crude oil make more sense?

Could they even develop a nuclear policy similar to that of the French?
 
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.


fasquardon

So does non-market pricing. Without any real price discovery you tend to get large inefficiencies. You have great difficulty figuring out if you are actually benefiting from the production or not.
 
Actually, the main problems of India were the fact that India has three different language groups, two of which are prominent i.e. Indo-Aryan and Dravidian. Also, India was a British concept and had no real sense of nationalism. Also the earlier Indian leaders were either idealist scholars who had no idea of how to run a country or opportunistic rouges who just wanted power. Another main issue was the enforcing of the Hindi language on people who did not even speak the language i.e. Dravidians and N.E. Indians. In was a case of trying to Assimilate the people rather than trying to Integrate them. And the biggest problem was the fact that Religion and Caste based reservations and nepotism have made meritocracy a farce in the country. If even some of these issues could have been solved, India might have progressed more than it has.
 
Apparently, China's coal reserves are predominantly located in the North East, and not the population centers which encompass the coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China#/media/File:Map_of_China_coal_resources.svg

There are plenty of small deposits near the population centers though. In India, most of the coal is deep inland or under the Thar desert (and of very poor quality to boot).

In any case, the development of India's electric capacity will be of great import. Any ideas on what shape that might take?

Basically, would importing coal or crude oil make more sense?

It absolutely makes sense for India to import coal and oil. Indeed, today India gets most of its coal from Indonesia and Australia.

Not only are prices lower than domestic coal, quality is higher and transportation more convenient.

Could they even develop a nuclear policy similar to that of the French?

I don't see why not, though it might take a while to scale up nuclear technology. The French get c. 80% of their electricity from nuclear, and reaching 80% nuclear for a grid as big as India's means an awful lot of nuclear reactors and those suckers take time to build.

So does non-market pricing. Without any real price discovery you tend to get large inefficiencies. You have great difficulty figuring out if you are actually benefiting from the production or not.

No argument there. The question is, what distorts prices more, corruption, over-regulation or under-regulation? I came across a very interesting paper a few years ago (no idea who it was by or where you might find it, I'm afraid) that argued that the reason corruption was so damaging to economies was precisely because it interfered with price discovery.

I don't know how true it is, but it is certainly an interesting way of looking at corruption.

But certainly, I think an honest bureaucracy can be reformed more easily to keep the red tape to the minimum needed to provide a level playing field. I think it is no accident that societies with endemic corruption seem to accumulate rules in an out-of-control way.

As such, I think an honest bureaucracy running an oppressive license raj would be less harmful in the long run than a dishonest bureaucracy running a lean set of regulations.

fasquardon
 
What would it take for the pre-state instability such as the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 and the threat of an independent India under left-leaning Nehru nationalizing British interests to be butterflied away in such a manner where ATL India ends up being much more open / attractive to foreign investment compared to OTL?

Since the Austin Motor Company for example had an abortive plan to set up a plant in India to be operational by 1948 and based on a £2.5 million investment, a pre-WW2 idea that was revived when a delegation of major Indian dealers paid a visit to Austin HQ at Longbridge in 1947 before being abandoned in the same year due to said instability.
 
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