Inputs for use Proof that India had a license raj introduced by Nehru quote from a paper by a Harvard professor at This puts a bound on the growth retarding effects of the license raj generated by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru s attraction to Fabian socialism and central planning What do you have to say to this Is this a massive conspiracy too Are you going to abuse this professor now as you have been abusing anyone who has pointed out that Nehru s central planning resulted in India being backward One more from a paper presented at Yale After decades of lackluster performance under the all pervasive interventionist policy regime espoused after independence the so called License Raj India embarked on a major economic liberalization program in 1991 triggered by a severe balance of payments crisis Yet another paper from Harvard website The pre independence experience was combined with a very clear inspiration from the experience of the socialist countries in particular the Soviet Union which was reflected in the speeches of the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and in the now famous Mahalonobis model which had many similarities to the work of Feldman for the first Soviet Five year plan see Domar 1957 11 From another academic paper Remnants of Nehru s command economy haunt virtually every aspect of India s reform program Even after twelve years of progress more than 40 of the country s capital base remains in government hands 10 Economist