The Forum of Free Enterprise is a non-political organization founded in 1956 by A. D. Shroff and has been established to educate public opinion in India on free enterprise and a democratic way of life. The Forum publishes booklets to further its objects. The following booklet titled “A Historical Perspective of New Economic Policies” was published on May 14, 1992, and was authored by Dr. I.G. Patel. The author highlights that so great is the area of agreement on the New Economic Policies that they themselves are in danger of becoming a new ideology or orthodoxy. He stresses the need to see these policies from a historical perspective to reach a just assessment. He argues that a proper mix and sequencing of different policies is as crucial as the policies themselves. He goes on to discuss the economics of development and distribution and points out the bottlenecks to growth that need attention. He argues that in our excitement about the new in economic thinking, we need not throw the baby out with the bathwater. For instance, according to him, we will still need sizeable public expenditure and careful multi-year planning for a long-time to come and we should be wary of any talk of rolling back the frontiers of the State. He calls for the reform of our approach to public action and not a retrenchment of it. He further points out that we have underestimated the role of markets, incentives and private initiative and relied excessively on the State in the sphere of investment and production.