It's worth looking at @AmartyaLahiri's IE article in more detail. By focusing on **per capita** GDP growth rates, he is able to completely recast the India Growth Story narrative...I've added in aggregate GDP growth figures, taken (and a few imputed) from his own numbers...

...during the Indira Gandhi regime, GDP did grow (albeit slower than in either the Nehru or the Rajiv Gandhi periods), the population just grew faster. But there is also no doubt that the quantum of *increase* in GDP growth rates (aggregate or per capita) was highest during Rajiv

...but the Rajiv Gandhi reforms (e.g. capital goods import liberalization which enabled faster manufacturing growth) are rarely mentioned... his interest in computers, telecommunications etc were also manifested in policy steps that benefited those sectors...

In the revised narrative, Reforms began during Rajiv, were furthered during Rao-Singh, and consolidated during Vajpayee-Singh. The last phase of growth before the current slowdown, 2004-15, was infrastructure investment-dependent, and this created the NPAs now bedeviling India.

...but India's real Pakistan lesson, I believe, is the one @EmergingRoy alluded to @PuneIntCentre ---viz., that India's central government is fiscally weak, the main reason is increased expenditure on internal security, and the last time something similar happened, the Maratha...

...empire arose to challenge the Mughals (and eventually found themselves ruling most of present-day Pakistan). The other important concept, #ZabardastFunda is #FoundationalSovereignty which he used to explain that all Indian states, linguistic reorganization notwithstanding, are

...creatures of the Centre (except UP, which existed as the United Provinces in its present-day boundaries sans Garhwal [then as now] before the Morley-Minto reforms of ca. 1910). For contrast with an entity which does not have a fiscal union (yet) see the EU!