36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Indian National Congress and its government to th^ twin elements of the national consensus. This commitment did not however imply that India would pursue an autarkical, let alone a socialist, policy. Indeed, as one perceptive economist has noted, "self-reliance to us did not mean shutting out the windows to the world; even a certain quantum of external assistance was incorporated in our definition of the term, but we did certainly rule out the probability of chronic foreign aid. India, we argued, was not lacking inherently either in manpower or natural resources, including mineral resources. We had also the advantage of starting out with a certain basic infra-structure of industrial and technological skills and facilities, which was superior to that possessed by most developing countries at the time. In addition, there was the advantage, we thought, of having a political leadership keen to pursue the goal of self-reliance. We opted for self-reliance because, in our view, it was the most rational economic course.3?2 This then was the strategy and the perception of our relative merits and constraints, of our opportunities and of our tasks. Even where deviations had occurred from this strategy they were viewed as temporary departures, as products of expediency, as being forced on an unwilling government; but rarely were tliese deviations justified on purely ideological grounds. The national consensus existed and it was rarely questioned. All this however did not mean that dissenters from the national consensus did not exist. There was a small but influential and vocal section of the business community which believed that far too much was being done in terms of closing out the "external" option. That is, they were opposed to the wholesale rejection of foreign capital and technology. Indeed, even the Bombay Plan had advocated foreign loans of the magnitude of Rs 700 crores and some businessmen went to Europe and the USA in search of collaborators. This was fortified by pressures from outside India, especially from the Americans and the British, demanding a liberal policy towards foreign capital and technology. The American Ambassador in India, Henry F Grady, openly asked for concessions for private American capital and for changes in India's national economic policy. It is clearly as a result of these various pressures that Nehru was forced to retreat from the radicalism of the IPR, 1948, when he told parliament later in 1948 and in 1949 that foreign capital was welcome in India. Needless to say, these 'external5 pressures were strengthened by 'internal' pressures from sections of the big business who were interested in foreign collaborations aimed at bolstering their individual market strength. However, foreign capital in the 1950's was not very enthusiastic about 'collaborations' and these had to wait till after the foreign exchange crisis of 1957-58. Further, despite internal and external pressures for liberalisation of economic policy towards foreign capital, the national consensus was