The United Nations Human Development Index has India at 0.431 in 1980, 0.470 in 1985, 0.509 in 1990, and 0.563 in 1998. India's decade-and-a-half of semi-neoliberalism seem to have seen a lot of economic growth along with some increases in education and some reductions in infant mortality.
It seems to me very hard indeed to argue that it would have been better had it continued under the unreformed Nehru dynasty "license raj"--almost as hard as to argue that Deng Xiaoping's decollectivization of agriculture was a mistake.
Brad DeLong