We are against FDI in retail, not anti-reforms, BJP says

After Independence in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned development of Indian economy on a grand scale. Nehru greatly admired the achievements of Soviet planning and so borrowed the concept of socialism from the Russians; but along with this, he also regarded the democratic values of the capitalist society as indispensable for the full growth of a just society. His government and its successors undertook an ambitious, ongoing campaign to construct factories, dams, highways, nuclear power plants and so on. Unlike the Soviet and other planned economies, the Indian government encouraged private ownership of the means of production as well as distribution. But, by and large, India adhered to socialist policies. However, attempts were made to liberalize economy in 1966. But the first attempt was reversed in 1967 and a stronger version of socialism was adopted. Thereafter, Second major attempt to liberalise the economy was in 1985 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi; the process also came to a halt in 1987. At the beginning of the 1990s the Indian economy faced an unprecedented severe economic crisis. The crisis was triggered by unforeseen fall in foreign exchange reserves, huge public and current account deficit, spiraling of prices, and mounting domestic and foreign debt. India had to pledge 20 tons of gold to Union Bank of Switzerland and 47 tons to Bank of England as part of a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In order to wriggle out of the crisis the Narasimha Rao government 1991 had to approach the Bretton Wood organisations (International Monetary Fund and World Bank). The IMF -World Bank combine came forward to offer a rescue package provided India agreed to abandon its socialist planning for free-market policies. Like several other countries around the same period - Mexico and Vietnam for instance - India agreed to liberalise economy by initiating a package of wide ranging reforms known as (new economic policy). P. V. Narasimha Rao and his finance minister Manmohan Singh (currently the Prime Minister of India) started breakthrough reforms. The new neo-liberal policies included opening for international trade and investment, deregulation, initiation of privatization, tax reforms, and inflation-controlling measures. The overall direction of liberalisation has since remained the same, irrespective of the ruling party, although no party has yet tried to take contentious issues such as FDI in retail trade. Recently, despite unprecedentedly strong opposition from all quarters, the Manmohan Singh government showed indecent haste and notified the rules to permit foreign retail chains into the multi-brand retail trade. The funniest aspect of the issue is the government is trying to hoodwink the people by terming this policy initiative as an inevitable unavoidable reform process to regenerate the economy.