By being born a desi - it's intrinsic to our genes...
But jokes apart, the hankering for phoren maal was probably reinforced by bans on import of almost anything from the late '50s onwards, which reinforced the perception that local goods were inferior, and imported goods were superior. The depreciation in the Rupee from 1966 onwards would have emphasized this even further - it would have been difficult for a manufacturer of quality goods in India (say Philips India) from importing quality components and manufacturing intermediate/finished goods of the same quality as international standards. Over time, a dual-tier system would develop, and the quality of goods for local consumption under a Rupee tariff would be poor, while a separate export-quality tier which is paid for through hard-currency exports would be partly competitive for a while, before being crushed by innovations elsewhere.
Singapore and the Asian Tigers did exactly the opposite - they fostered Free Trade in everything to give competitive innovation a free hand at all levels in the manufacturing supply-chain (knowledge/designs, tools, raw materials, components, intermediate goods, finished goods, ... ). By the '80s/'90s, audio equipment that was made in Singapore was competitive with the best in the world - for instance, check out the Denon (Nippon Columbia) microcomponent systems that were manufactured in Singapore then, for export to the US and EU. The Denon UD-M5 3-CD microcomponent changer is an unbelievably complex piece of electromechanical engineering for its price point of $599 or whatever.
Similar blunders made in the '50s/'60s by Nehru/TTK are being repeated in the Nokia factory case. By eliminating a quality local manufacturer who was manufacturing about $10B+ per annum of product on a small plot of land in the boonies, using mostly local labour which doesn't have any qualifications above high-school and only speaks Tamil, the taxman and UPA II successfully managed to transfer about $10B worth from the export to the import trade-balance account. The only low-end smartphones available now are Chinese-made, cost about 2x the Nokia Ashas, and have about 25% of the durability (they will have to be replaced about 2-4x more frequently).
The tax-man must be brimming with socialistic pride at having eliminated about 125,000 direct and indirect private-sector jobs at one shot, and also creating a forex liability of ~$20B through removal of value-addition (which has just gone to China and Vietnam). Great job guys, a Bharat Ratna or similar awaits you, just like the one awarded to Nehru...
BTW, the Nokia factory on its own is worth *nothing*, zero, zilch, nada, shunya, as Essar has correctly concluded when it walked away yesterday from a tentative deal to buy it. All the value is locked up in *wetware*, i.e. brains of ex- and current employees of Nokia. It consists of knowledge of designs, software, supply-chains, markets, logistics, manufacturing, etc., most of which is now safely in the hands of Microsoft. Microsoft may mess it up further, but that's another story...
. the limit is 45K or so, and since all my stuff was vintage, they did not even bother. 
