Incrementalim vs Ideology: The Dilemma of Developing Nations

It will remain for a long time one of the much debated issues in Indian Ad­ministration: whether Jawaharlal Nehru did the right thing in 1947 in opting (deli­berately or otherwise) for a policy of ‘gradualism’ rather than making a clean break with the past. Even as he spoke movingly of the ‘Tryst with Destiny’ on the midnight of August 15th, his instru­ments of power and influence remained the same—the Civil Services and the Army—as the legacies from a previous adminis­tration. Even the Constitution of India, while drawing inspiration from the British and American models, relied for its opera­tive clauses largely on the much-maligned Government of India Act, 1935,which the Congress Party had so contemptuously spurned during the Freedom Struggle. This is the problem that is studied and analysed by Tummala in this well­-written and interesting book. In the words of the author himself: