After Independence the policymaking elite in India launched a project of economic development with a heavy involvement of the state and a democratic polity. In the first three decades

After Independence the policymaking elite in India launched a project of economic development with a heavy involvement of the state and a democratic polity. In the first three decades since then, in the 50's, 60's and 70's, there were many successes and at least as many failures of this developmental project. In terms of economic success, this particular project led to the foundation of a complex industrial economy, though some parts of the economy are highly inefficient and not very cost effective. This project also led to a fairly reasonable rate of agricultural growth, with publicly provided or subsidised irrigation and chemical fertilizers, sometimes at the cost of a heavy fiscal burden and some environmental degradation. In terms of the democratic experiment, apart from consolidating a massively diverse polity into some unified political and administrative framework, over time ripples of democratic equality spread out as if in concentric circles to ever increasing numbers of hitherto subordinate groups and castes.