06-04-2005, 11:38 PM
Articles â
A DECADE OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES: 1966-1977
Dr. J. K. Bajaj [Review of P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the âEmergencyâ and Indian Democracy, Oxford, New Delhi 2000]
Srimati Indira Gandhi presided over the Indian State from 1966-1977. This was a crucial decade for India. The first twenty years following Independence were a period of recuperation. Much effort had to be spent on restoring to some state of health and vigour the physical and social environment that had been devastated by long centuries of foreign rule. Indira Gandhi arrived on the scene when the nation was in a position to make a concerted drive towards greater prosperity and power. Other countries of the world that achieved Independence along with us began to make substantial strides around this time; the foundations of the great prosperity and power that we see in China and the Southeast Asian nations today were in fact laid during the sixties and seventies.
India under Indira Gandhi did take some major, though tentative, steps. In the economic field, the productivity and market availability of food-grains was sought to be improved through the so-called âgreen revolutionâ, and through nationalisation of banking, an effort was made to mobilise large-scale funds for state-sponsored industrial growth. In the political field, the creation of Bangladesh with Indian military assistance established India as a power to reckon with, at least in the South Asian region. The testing of a nuclear device at Pokharan in May 1974 further underlined the Indian surge towards power; and the merger of Sikkim in September the same year proved to the world the Indian willingness to assert herself in order to protect her vital strategic interests.
A DECADE OF LOST OPPORTUNITIES: 1966-1977
Dr. J. K. Bajaj [Review of P. N. Dhar, Indira Gandhi, the âEmergencyâ and Indian Democracy, Oxford, New Delhi 2000]
Srimati Indira Gandhi presided over the Indian State from 1966-1977. This was a crucial decade for India. The first twenty years following Independence were a period of recuperation. Much effort had to be spent on restoring to some state of health and vigour the physical and social environment that had been devastated by long centuries of foreign rule. Indira Gandhi arrived on the scene when the nation was in a position to make a concerted drive towards greater prosperity and power. Other countries of the world that achieved Independence along with us began to make substantial strides around this time; the foundations of the great prosperity and power that we see in China and the Southeast Asian nations today were in fact laid during the sixties and seventies.
India under Indira Gandhi did take some major, though tentative, steps. In the economic field, the productivity and market availability of food-grains was sought to be improved through the so-called âgreen revolutionâ, and through nationalisation of banking, an effort was made to mobilise large-scale funds for state-sponsored industrial growth. In the political field, the creation of Bangladesh with Indian military assistance established India as a power to reckon with, at least in the South Asian region. The testing of a nuclear device at Pokharan in May 1974 further underlined the Indian surge towards power; and the merger of Sikkim in September the same year proved to the world the Indian willingness to assert herself in order to protect her vital strategic interests.