Q.Give an outline of the strategy of development adopted by India and Pakistan after Independence.

This question has an OR — Part (a) outlines India's and Pakistan's post-Independence development strategies; Part (b) (OR) lists areas where China has an edge over India. Both are answered in full below.

Part (a): Development Strategy of India and Pakistan after Independence

India:

• Adopted a mixed economy framework, combining a strong public sector with a private sector, implemented through centralised Five Year Plans starting in 1951.
• Followed an import-substitution industrialisation strategy, focusing on building a domestic heavy/capital-goods industrial base (the Mahalanobis strategy from the Second Plan onwards) to achieve self-reliance.
• Agriculture was supported through land reforms and later the Green Revolution, though the overall growth rate remained moderate (the so-called 'Hindu rate of growth') until the 1980s/1991 reforms.

Pakistan:

• Also adopted a centralised planning approach similar to India's, with Five Year Plans and an initial focus on import substitution.
• In the 1960s, Pakistan shifted its strategy to promote the private sector more actively, with public investment concentrated on building infrastructure to support private industry.
• Agriculture benefited early from Green Revolution technology, giving Pakistan a temporary growth advantage over India in some decades.
• Pakistan's growth, however, was more volatile, partly due to political instability, heavy dependence on foreign aid/remittances, and periods of military rule interrupting consistent long-term planning.

Overall: Both countries started with broadly similar planned-development strategies, but India maintained more consistent long-term planning institutions, while Pakistan oscillated more between state-led and private-sector-led approaches and was more reliant on external assistance.

OR — Areas Where China has an Edge over India

1. Population control — China's one-child policy sharply slowed its population growth from 1979 onward, giving it a more favourable (lower) dependency ratio for a longer period, which boosted per-capita income growth.
2. Higher GDP growth rate — China has sustained much higher annual GDP growth rates than India since its 1978 market reforms, due to an early, aggressive opening to foreign investment and export-oriented manufacturing.
3. Stronger manufacturing/industrial base — China built up a much larger, globally competitive manufacturing sector (the 'world's factory'), attracting far more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) than India. …