Comparative Development Experiences of India and its Neighbours

This closing chapter puts the whole book in perspective. Chapters 1–7 looked at India alone; here India's choices — planning, a mixed economy, reforms in 1991, services-led growth — are set beside the very different choices of its two largest neighbours. Countries also form regional and global groupings (SAARC, the European Union, ASEAN, G-20, BRICS) and study their neighbours because developing countries compete with each other in a limited economic space.

• Builds on Chapter 2 (planning, 1950–90), Chapter 3 (1991 reforms), Chapter 4 (human capital), Chapter 6 (sectoral structure of employment).
• Overlaps with Geography: Fundamentals of Human Geography Chapter 3 (HDI) and India: People and Economy Chapter 1 (population) and Chapter 8 (trade).
• Links to Class 10 Economics (Development — comparing countries by income and HDI) and Class 12 Contemporary World Politics (regional groupings, China's rise) for the political side.
• UPSC: Prelims has asked comparative questions — South Asian literacy (2002), HDI order (2003), GDP per capita (2003), BRIC GDP (2010), median age (2008), India–China farm comparison (2023). GS3 uses these comparisons as evidence in answers on growth, manufacturing and human development.

• Same start: India and Pakistan 1947, China 1949; first plans 1951, 1956 (Pakistan), 1953 (China).
• Reforms: China 1978 (own initiative), Pakistan 1988, India 1991 (both with IMF–World Bank support).
• Population 2021–23: India 1,428 m, China 1,411 m (falling), Pakistan 240 m; fertility 2.0 / 1.2 / 3.4.
• GDP growth 1980–90: China 10.3, Pakistan 6.3, India 5.7; in 2024: India 6.5, China 5.0, Pakistan 3.1.
• China: classic shift farm → industry → services; India and Pakistan jumped to services; India still has 43% of workers in farming.
• HDI (HDR 2025): China 0.797 (78th), India 0.685 (130th), Pakistan 0.544 (168th).

India and Pakistan became independent in 1947; the People's Republic of China was set up in 1949. Nehru saw the changes in both China and India, though different in content, as signs of a new spirit in Asia. All three planned: India's First Five Year Plan 1951–56, China's First Five Year Plan 1953, Pakistan's first plan (now called the Medium Term Development Plan) 1956. India and Pakistan both built large public sectors and raised social spending. Till the 1980s the three had similar growth rates and per capita incomes. Their political systems differ: India a parliamentary democracy; Pakistan with periods of civilian and military rule; China a one-party state with a command economy that later moved towards market reforms.

China: after 1949 all critical sectors, enterprises and privately owned land came under state control. The Great Leap Forward (1958) sought rapid mass industrialisation — people were urged to set up backyard industries — and rural communes farmed land collectively (26,000 communes covering almost all farm households in 1958). The GLF ran into serious problems: a severe drought and famine killed about 30 million people (NCERT), and the Soviet Union withdrew its experts. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–76) sent students and professionals to work and learn in the countryside.

Pakistan: a mixed economy, like India. In the late 1950s and 1960s it followed regulated, import-substituting industrialisation — tariff protection for consumer-goods manufacturing plus direct import controls. The Green Revolution brought mechanisation and public investment in select areas, raised foodgrain output and changed the agrarian structure. The 1970s saw nationalisation of capital-goods industries; the late 1970s and 1980s brought denationalisation and encouragement of the private sector, helped by financial support from Western nations and remittances from emigrants to the Middle East. Reforms began in 1988.

Of every six people in the world, one is Indian and one Chinese. China is the largest in area and has the lowest density. Population growth is highest in Pakistan, then India, then China — scholars credit China's one-child norm (late 1970s), which also lowered its sex ratio. But sex ratios are low in all three, reflecting son preference. The one-child norm will leave China with more elderly relative to young people, which led China to allow two children. Fertility is low in China and very high in Pakistan; urbanisation is high in China, with India at 36%.

By PPP, China's GDP is $35 trillion, India's $15 trillion (about 42% of China's) and Pakistan's $1.5 trillion (about 10% of India's). In the 1980s China grew near double digits, Pakistan was ahead of India, and India was at the bottom; by 2015–17 and 2024, China's and Pakistan's growth had slowed while India's held up. Some scholars blame Pakistan's reform process and long political instability for its slowdown.

Sectors: only about 10% of China's land is cultivable — about 40% of India's cultivable area. Until the 1980s over 80% of Chinese depended on farming; the government then encouraged movement into handicrafts, commerce and transport. In 2022, China's agriculture employed 23% of workers but gave 8% of GVA; India's employed 43% for 18%; Pakistan's 36% for 24%. In all three, services give the largest share of output. Services' share of workers rose from 17, 12 and 27% in the 1980s (India, China, Pakistan) to 31, 45 and 38% in 2022 — Pakistan moved earliest.

China is ahead of India and Pakistan on most indicators — income (GNI per capita), poverty, mortality, sanitation, schooling, life expectancy and undernourishment. In China only 23 women die per lakh births, against 103 in India and 154 in Pakistan. All three report basic drinking water for most people.

Taking reforms as the reference point — China 1978, Pakistan 1988, India 1991 — NCERT compares the pre- and post-reform record. China reformed without outside compulsion: its new leadership was dissatisfied with slow growth and the failure of the Maoist model of decentralisation, self-sufficiency and shunning foreign technology, goods and capital — per capita grain output in 1978 was the same as in the mid-1950s. Pre-reform investment in education and health, land reforms, decentralised planning and small enterprises helped post-reform social and income gains; communes had distributed grain more equitably. Each reform was tried small, then scaled up; household farming lifted vast numbers out of poverty and built support for further reform.

Scholars argue Pakistan's reforms worsened its economic indicators; its GDP and sector growth have not regained 1980s levels. Its international poverty data look healthy, but official national data show poverty rising again. Unlike earnings from sustainable manufactured exports, its foreign exchange came largely from remittances and volatile farm exports. NCERT also notes recovery: its Annual Plan 2019–20 reported 5.5% GDP growth in 2017–18, with industry at 4.9% and services at 6.2%.

Conclusion (NCERT): till the late 1970s all three were at similar low levels; the last three decades took them to different levels. India, with democratic institutions, performed moderately, but most of its people still depend on agriculture. For Pakistan, scholars cite political instability, over-dependence on remittances and foreign aid, and volatile farming — though recent indicators show recovery. For China, NCERT notes concerns about political freedom and human rights, while recording that it used the market system ‘without losing political commitment’, raised growth and reduced poverty, used markets to create social and economic opportunities rather than privatising, kept collective land ownership with individual cultivation (rural social security), and invested in social infrastructure before reforms.

Try each question yourself first, then open the outline to compare. Q17 (fill in the blanks) is partly in the self-check.

Numbers

One-liners

• Same start, same planning, different reform years and routes.
• China's reforms: household farming → TVEs → SOE competition → dual pricing → SEZs.
• One-child norm: slower growth, lower sex ratio, ageing.
• China: farm → industry → services; India and Pakistan: farm → services.
• China's human development lead rests on pre-reform social investment.
• Pakistan's growth rose and fell with harvests and remittances.
• Human development needs liberty indicators too (NCERT).
• India's trade deficit with China widened sharply; trade with Pakistan nearly vanished.

Traps to avoid

• China reformed in 1978 on its own initiative; Pakistan 1988 and India 1991 with IMF–World Bank support.
• Pakistan's first plan was in 1956, China's in 1953.
• At PPP China's GDP is the world's largest, not second (NCERT slip).
• Pakistan's population is about one-sixth, not one-tenth, of India's or China's.
• The Cultural Revolution began in 1966, not 1965.
• Mean years of schooling is in years, not %.
• Table 8.5: India and Pakistan are equal on national poverty (21.9%); India is ahead of Pakistan on sanitation — despite the text.
• Table 8.3 gives 26% (not 24/25%) of workers in industry for India and Pakistan.
• China's HDI gains are credited to pre-reform strategies.
• G-8 is now G-7 (Russia suspended in 2014).

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Comparative data is the pattern: South Asian literacy order (2002), HDI order (2003), lowest GDP per capita (2003), median ages (2008), BRIC GDP and population (2010), India vs China arable area and productivity (2023).
• Learn the dates (1947/1949; 1951/1953/1956; 1958; 1966–76; 1978/1988/1991) and the direction of each indicator in Tables 8.1–8.5 — UPSC rarely asks exact values but often asks which country is higher.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Use this chapter as evidence in GS3 answers: manufacturing vs services-led growth (Table 8.3), why India's farm workforce stays large, human development lagging growth (Table 8.5), the case for social infrastructure before reforms (China), the trade deficit with China.
• Answer frame: common start → divergent strategies (reform year and route) → outcomes with data (growth, sectors, HDI) → explanations (pre-reform social investment, manufacturing, stability) → lessons for India → NCERT's liberty-indicator caveat for balance. Keep the tone comparative and factual, not political.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.