Bread and the Ballot: The United States and India's Economic Development, 1947-1963

Dennis Merrill examines the origins and implementation of U.S. economic assistance programs in India from independence in 1947 to the height of John F. Kennedy's "development decade" in 1963. As the Cold War spread to the Third World in the late 1940s and 1950s, American policymakers tried to use economic aid to draw neutral India into the Western camp. Citing the country as the "world's largest democracy," the Americans hoped to establish India as a showcase for American@-sponsored development and a counterweight to the Communist model in the People's Republic of China.