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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Nehru’s “temple of Modern India” consisted not only of steel and power plants, irrigation dams, but included institutions of higher learning particularly in the scientific field. Elaborate.

  • UPSC 2011
  • Economic Development and Political Change

Jawaharlal Nehru coined the phrase "temples of modern India" while addressing workers at the Bhakra-Nangal dam in 1954, and repeated the sentiment the following year while laying the foundation stone of the Nagarjuna Sagar dam.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of the History Optional PYQ Master Pack.

What the full answer covers

  • The Physical "Temples": Dams, Steel and the Idea Behind Them
  • Why "Institutions of Higher Learning" Belong Inside the Same Metaphor
  • The Institutional Architecture Nehru Built
  • National Laboratories and Technical Education
  • Atomic Energy, Space, Health and Agriculture
  • Assessment: Institutions as the Load-Bearing Element of the Metaphor

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