Livemint

Is a Wall Street Journal newspaper recently launched in Bombay. Among other things, it carries 2 regular columns which I thoroughly enjoy: "Mobius Strip" by Ramesh Ramanathan & "Thinking it Through" by Amit Varma.

In his latest piece, Amit Varma eloquently echoes a sentiment I keep sharing with anyone who cares to listen: that the Nehru - Gandhi legacy in Indian politics is the prime reason India is about 50 years behind several other Asian nations and about a 100 years behind Western Europe. And the scary bit is it isn't over yet.

Jawaharlal Nehru was one of our foremost freedom fighters, but the freedom he fought for was restricted to the political domain. Once the British had been ousted, he replaced them with a new oppressor: the Indian government. He distrusted free trade, and once famously told JRD Tata that profit was “a dirty word.”...continue reading