Land Reforms failure altered Indias history

KOCHI: Failure of the attempts to redistribute productive assets through land reforms was the key factor that altered the course of Indian economic history, said P K Michael Tharakan, economic historian and vicechancellor of the Kannur University.Delivering the keynote address at the public lecture ‘Jawaharlal Nehru’s Concept of Governance and Perspectives on Development’, jointly organised by the Department of Economics at St Teresa’s College and the Centre for Socio Economic and Environment Studies, Palarivattom on Tuesday, Prof Michael Tharakan elaborated on how the Nehruvian concept of development as well as governance, were replaced by more liberal policies in the early 1990s under Dr Manmohan Singh.He pointed out that the decision to adopt socialist planning after independence was very much influenced by the Global Depression in the 1930s. Since socialist USSR was the only nation to escape the impact of the economic downturn that affected almost all countries, inspired Jawaharlal Nehru to adopt a similar model of socialist planning for India, he said.