Other Contemporary Influential Voices

Abstract Nehru’s vision found near unanimous support from the relevant constituencies. Even the rare dissenting voices did not question the core strategy of primacy to heavy industries. At Nehru’s instance, his close associate and a self-taught statistician, P. C. Mahalanobis, prepared the Draft Plan-frame of the second plan, which was extensively discussed and endorsed by a panel of twenty-one leading economists of India, including V. K. R. V. Rao, D. R. Gadgil, K. N. Raj, A. K. Das Gupta, Vakil, and D. T. Lakdawala. Only Shenoy submitted a dissent note questioning the wisdom of the large deficit financing. All foreign economists invited by the government supported the Plan-frame. Milton Friedman, independently sent by the US government, provided a trenchant critique that proved prophetic later but had no salience at the time. Some dissenting voices in the parliament notwithstanding, politicians overwhelmingly endorsed Nehru’s vision, while leading businessmen had already given it a nod through their 1945 Bombay Plan.