Beginning in the 1980s, the political economy of India underwent significant transformation: the reform process launched at this time sought to deregulate industrial activity and gradually open the country to foreign trade. Adopted against the backdrop of a balance of payment crisis and in the framework of a structural adjustment program, the 1991 reforms in particular dismantled the interventionist and protectionist model that had been established following independence in 1947. While the macroeconomic aspects of the Indian reforms are relatively well-known, the same cannot be said of the corresponding sectoral policies. In this matter, it is important to underscore the continued presence of the state. I will thus consider industrial development policies and their evolution in the general context of a reorientation of economic policy. In what follows, I will draw upon diachronic analysis and several specific examples to discuss recent changes in industrial development policy within India’s federal democracy. I will therefore examine the principles that underlie policy orientations as well as the concepts that are mobilized (small-scale industries, clusters, free trade zones) in order to assess how the authorities’ involvement in the country’s industrialization has evolved. For example, though it reflects a continued desire on the part of the state to support industrial development, today’s free trade zone policy constitutes a major departure in terms both of its underlying economic rationale and its implementation.