4 Blunders That Kept India Poor After 1947 | The Foresight

Are we really independent? Countries that won freedom after 1947 have moved ahead of India. This video looks at four early decisions that explain why. We go through the choices made in India's first four decades and what they cost the country. → Universal voting rights in 1950, when literacy stood at about 12%. The US allowed only around 6% of its population to vote at its founding. → The Nehru government's China policy. In 1950 Sardar Patel warned in writing that China was a threat. The warning was set aside, the Panchsheel agreement followed in 1954, China built a road through Aksai Chin, and India went into the 1962 war under-equipped. → Staying with Nehruvian socialism through the 1960s and 70s, while China under Deng Xiaoping opened up in phases. → Reforms that came only in 1991, during a balance of payments crisis, and were pushed hard again only under Vajpayee. The question at the end is this: is India ready to make the trade-offs that the countries it compares itself to made?