What determines the specific form that industrialization takes?

The question is not very clear. Please elaborate

The vision of the political leadership.

Nehru, a true democrat, had left leanings. But he sought advise from
both West and the East.

West advised him to give preference and spend resources on
agriculture. East advised him to industrialise and become self
sufficient.

Nehru combined both advices and 5 year plans started. Ist plan was
preponderently agri based. A giant country like India takes time to
gather momentum, and without a strong industrial base it is not
possible. this was realised by the leadership.

From IInd plan onwards the emphasis shifted to Industrialisation,
starting with heavy and basic industries. There was shortage of
resources both monetory and human. WG, Briton and Russia helped in
various ways.

A mixed economy model was adopted, i.e.,a mix of private and public sectors.

Just before breakup of soviet union, Breznev toyed with the idea of
adopting the Indian model for his country. But events moved too fast.

The basic industries gave birth to ancilliaries. the Juggernaut started moving.

what we see today are the fruits of this planning.

Compare India with Pakisthan to see how vision of leadership makes a difference.

chary

I could add that for a long time  - into the 70s at least, or maybe
well into the 80s -  India was not friendly to foreign investment,
which hampered industrialization and competition, so that there was
less pressure for the existing Indian industrialists to modernize, 
the Tata group, for example, whose ?Ambassador? autos were 20 years
(my number) behind the time in the early 1970s.  And there was too
much government involvement in industry and in labor relations.  As a
lawyer there told me in 1970, a serious problem was that socialist
thinking gave support to labor, wanting to give employees a larger
share of the cake, but unlike in Karl Marx? day, the companies were
not owned by greedy, profiteering capitalists, but were government
controlled and often unprofitable  - no cake to share.
I think industrialization only really picked up strongly when foreign
control of ownership was liberalized, but someone else will have to
put a date on that.

Agreed that some mistakes were made and forign investment could have
been allowed a bit earlier. But look at Indonesia which allowed
foreign investment right from the begining. Japanese set up a No. of
industries, but they were only assembly shops without any real
transfer of technology. A strong industrial base was necessary at
first and this has been provided by policy makers in India.

At the time of independence 1947,India was a big industrial state having 10th
place on world industrial nation but the India does not show such
progess compared to korea,taiwan,and now a days china is showing
inspite of the fact the India always enjoyed a good political
leadership.

In my views, there were so many reason based on international
politices and on internal policies.I fully agreed with the compents of
"myoarin-ga" and will not repeat these again but also wish to add that
indian industry has always enjoyed over protection which always give
huge profit to investors and they have not feel any necessity to
invest in technology and research compared to other countries.

As fo the Foreign Investment is concerned, it is always bond with
international politics.If you will see the history of last 50 year,
main target of the big industrial nations, was to defete communism, so
they made heavy investment in far east to increase the per capita
income of the region. It give good result,living standard of people
increased and it help to counter the communist movement successfully.

Since last 20 year all investment,from europe,usa,japan etc. is going
to china and in my views the basic reason is to defeate
socialism/communism and they are very successfull in their task and
china is not the same china now a days which it was back 20 year or
more. If some one say that investment is going to china for huge
market only that it also should come to indian subcontinent also which
is same size market as the china is but the reality is very different.


Ijaz Ahmad
Lahore
Pakistan