Aug. 15 commemorated the 74th anniversary of India’s political independence from the United Kingdom. But less venerated is July 24, 1991, when Indians were granted their first modicum of economic freedom.
In the setting of a balance-of-payments crisis that year, India dismantled a labyrinthine regime of bureaucratic market controls known as the “License Raj.” Private companies were finally allowed to coexist with state-owned behemoths. Industrialists no longer had to procure licenses from stodgy bureaucrats anytime they wanted to expand output or import capital equipment. International trade and foreign finance were no longer scorned as a colonialist redux. India ended its self-imposed autarky, assiduously courting overseas investment and slashing import tariffs. From 1991 to 2003, economic growth leaped at an average annual rate of 5.4%. By 2016, nearly 300 million Indians had been liberated from extreme poverty.
