THE ENDS OF LIBERALISM AND THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF NEHRU'S INDIA

Abstract

The period immediately following Independence when Jawaharlal Nehru was prime minister of India (1947–64) has been described conventionally as an era dominated by “socialist” developmentalism. This article contends that an examination of the ideas of Nehru and his closest colleagues reveals a much more complex amalgam of political ideologies and sentiments. Ideas of small-scale development through local bodies and cooperative societies, typical of earlier “communitarian” liberals such as G. K. Gokhale, were blended, and sometimes contended, with visions of rapid industrialization more obviously based on the Soviet model. Nehru himself remained distinctly liberal in his political stance, musing that he could not impose further socialist measures “because most Indians were not socialists.” The article considers the importance of the events of India's partition for this ideological amalgam and the examines the ideas of key figures in Nehru's circle, notably G. B. Pant, D. R. Gadgil, P. C. Mahalanobis and S. Radhakrishnan.