In Reconstructing India are ideas that even today resonate with Indian thinkers. ‘If bureaucracy prevails,’ he warned, for instance, ‘industries will not prosper.’ Without modern industry—which meant progressive education, social reform, and, crucially, women’s empowerment—the nation itself would not prosper. The state had to guide the process but also recognise its limits: the ‘people require help and backing,’ he argued, ‘not control and direction.’ Page after page presented Visvesvaraya’s vision for India, one in which caste retreated before ‘a saner social system’ and nationalism meant a
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