Was the Bombay Plan a Capitalist Plot?

In 1944, a group of Indian businessmen issued A Plan of Economic Development for India. This came to be known as the Bombay Plan. The attitude of Indian industrialists to the economic structure of independent India was encapsulated in the Plan. The views of the bourgeoisie were, by this stage, closely aligned with those of the Indian National Congress. The Plan therefore contained a strong endorsement of state economic intervention and planning. The motives of the bourgeoisie in this endeavour are the subject of this article.¹ Rejecting claims that the Indian bourgeoisie put forward the Plan as a ruse, the author concludes that the bourgeoisie's self-interest at the time demanded state economic intervention—as did the interests of the nation.