Editing Indira Gandhi (section)

=== Operation Forward and the Sixth Five-Year Plan ===
Gandhi inherited a weak economy when she became prime minister again in 1980.<ref name="Harley">{{Cite book| publisher = [[Routledge]]| page = 192|url={{Google books|PtINAAAAQAAJ|page=PA192|keywords=|text=|plainurl=yes}}|isbn=978-0-415-00161-8
| last = Harley| first = Keith|author2=Todd Sandler| title = The Economics of Defence Spending: An International Survey| year = 1990}}</ref> The preceding year—1979–80—under the Janata Party government saw the strongest recession (−5.2%) in the history of modern India with inflation rampant at 18.2%.<ref name="Rosser" /><ref name="Kelly" /><ref name="Lal">{{cite book|last=Lal|first=Deepak |title=The Hindu Equilibrium: India c.1500 B.C. – 2000 A.D.|url=https://archive.org/details/hinduequilibrium00lald|url-access=limited|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-927579-3|year=2004|page=[https://archive.org/details/hinduequilibrium00lald/page/n329 314]}}</ref> Gandhi proceeded to abrogate the Janata Party government's Five-Year Plan in 1980 and launched the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980–85). Her government targeted an average growth rate of 5.2% over the period of the plan.<ref name="Growth statistics" /> Measures to check inflation were also taken; by the early 1980s it was under control at an annual rate of about 5%.<ref name="Lal" />

Although Gandhi continued professing socialist beliefs, the Sixth Five-Year Plan was markedly different from the years of Garibi Hatao. Populist programmes and policies were replaced by pragmatism.{{sfn|Malik|1988|pp=60–72}} There was an emphasis on tightening public expenditures, greater efficiency of the [[state-owned enterprise]]s (SOE), which Gandhi qualified as a "sad thing", and on stimulating the private sector through deregulation and liberation of the capital market.<ref name="Waterbury">{{cite book|first=John|last=Waterbury|title=Exposed to Innumerable Delusions: Public Enterprise and State Power in Egypt, India, Mexico, and Turkey|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1993|page=58|isbn=978-0-521-43497-3}}</ref> The government subsequently launched ''Operation Forward'' in 1982, the first cautious attempt at reform.<ref name="Rendezvous">{{cite news|url=http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/sunanda-k-datta-ray-rendezvousronnie/152623/ |title=Sunanda K Datta Ray: Rendezvous with Ronniel |publisher=Business-standard.com |date=12 June 2004 |access-date=31 July 2013|newspaper=Business Standard India |last1=Ray |first1=Sunanda K. Datta }}</ref> The Sixth Plan went on to become the most successful of the Five-Year Plans yet; showing an average growth rate of 5.7% over 1980–85.<ref name="Growth statistics" />