He did not shun the private sector but put brakes on its growth with mandatory need for license. His prejudice for private sector was product of his close observations in England during his higher studies. The rising commercial class succeeded in giving the last shove to the aristocracy to oblivion. Nehru had spent his childhood in the aristocratic living style of his father. He was never sent to school to avoid the contact of long duration with Indian students condemned as brats of ugly poor Indians and he was educated at home by British tutors. He had not seen Indian village till 1936 though he was 47 years of age by then.

As a dreamer he undertook total responsibility of executing every function by his government and delivering net benefits to the people. He had not intended but his concept had reduced Indians to be mere spectators expecting great show and jeering every shortcoming. He also did not realize that party activities including election process would entail huge finance needs. Money cannot come from public sector enterprises. That was the introduction of corruption in political arena as private financiers expected and sought returns.

Nehru was mesmerized by the giant leaps of the communist Russian regime in eight years to build huge industrial base, and sought similar pattern for India ignoring Indian asset was in dealing with miniatures. In the Nehruvian era the Indian market suffered from two inhibitions to its legitimate growth to encourage illegitimate avenues. Nehru studied law and not history to know the role of the market forces to strengthen its parliament and in reduction of power of its royalty. The emperor could not impose even simple tax without approval of Parliament. The strong market became the backbone of democracy in England in 18th century. Yet Nehru could win three times a clear mandate as he had the weakest and splintered opposition. His successor Lal Bahadur Shastri set up as his first act the Economic Reforms Commission to be headed by the rightist LK Jha. Shastri did not have long tenure to see the fial report and his successor Indira Gandhi had to fight the bitter battle of survival with the rightist inside and outside of her party.

On her dramatic return to power in 1980, she realized her folly in weakening the economy but could not develop courage or had enough time to introduce reversal procedure. Her son Rajiv Gandhi had no understanding of either politics or economy. He frittered away foreign exchange on free import of luxury consumption goods by middle class instead for building the economic base. Narsimha Rao was left with no option but open the economy for private sector. He was not a political mind to exploit his gain in the strengthened market force as others painted his actions to be for benefit of a big business magnate. Vajpayee could not move further as his mentors did not care for better economic conditions. The world experience warned them of bad impact on relevance of religion in public life with rapid economic growth. For a decade India was under the regime of a person who believed the salvation of poor was in charity and not in turning them to be productive to be free of the curse of poverty. The Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh was helpless as he was merely a nominee in the chair without any power.

The disappointed youth was impressed by promise of the rapid economic growth by the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi leading the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014 elections. His claim was fortified with the certificates of excellence by top industrialists and by his bending his mentors to replace the divisive issues that had failed since 1989 election by the economic growth as the top priority in the agenda. The Sangh Parivar had no alternative but agree. There was no other capable leader to replace him in the midst of the on-going electoral frenzy. NaMo had cleverly disassociated himself with his party with the long run of poll failures. He sought the vote for the Modi government and not for the party.

His troubles began building up after the formation of his government. He could not entice foreign capital to come to India though he threw open even parts of defence sector for foreign investments and production mechanisms. Though he had reduced the political stature of his cabinet colleagues and truncated their political authority, foreign capital was not convinced that he was presiding over the one man rule system. Their suspicions materialized within few months after the Sangh allowed its three front shops to publicly oppose his reforms programme to ease the land acquisition process and facilitate setting up of new industrial units.

He began to erode the market base. The demonetization was his first move. It imposed miseries with shutters down for cottage and small scale industrial units. Half a million were rendered jobless. He had dealt a blow to lower rung of the market. Yet he won within six months the political fortress of the consolidated OBCs, Dalits and Muslim women in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.

In two years he surprised everyone predicting his defeat in the Lok Sabha polls as his slate of achievements had nothing to show, by improving his tally by twenty more seats. His only and main opponent the Congress leadership refused to analyze the failure of its charity based agenda in the previous election. Rahul Gandhi had offered more of charity to lower class to annoy higher classes to vote against him. Even in face of certain defeat, Modi did not promise charity.

He did implement one pet programme of the Sangh Parivar by eliminating the only Muslim majority state Kashmir but he did not agree or consent to reduce the status of the Indian Muslims to be sub-citizens. He contradicted publicly his home minister to invite wrath of the Sangh chief to publicly disassociate the Sangh with him and his supporting party. His response was hit back through the lock down on 14th day of the Sangh chief’s statement at the Holi Milan Rally at Ranchi. The step was to destroy the economy and the community. His action does no show malice towards the masses. But it is apparent that his move was political and not the strategic need for the corona virus was then or even now has not become pandemic in India. Earlier regimes had not struck at the markets though could not accelerate the growth rate but they did not strike the fatal blow like the present ruling dispensation did.