Here's my two cents worth !
Frankly during the Cold War, only the US and USSR were the real choosers as to who should be with them, the rest were just mere puppets under the hands of these two superpowers !! The western nations sided up with the Americans because they shared more or less the same values and culture, most importantly they were imperialist in nature, and US was also developing that mentality since the end of WW2 ! The east or Asian and African nations sided up with the USSR since the might of the Soviets ensured they will not be again used by their Imperialist landlords under whom they were raped inside out ! The Asian and African nations looked up to the Communist and Socialist ideals since they were poor nations and were impressed how all sections of the society was able to transform for the better under either of these two state ideologies. The west hated these ideologies since they were already well off since 500-600 years back, they didn't want to part with the practice of the wealth accumulated by an individual and share it with others, and they knew that under American umbrella, they would continue to loot the resources of their erstwhile colonies for their own benefits as they continued doing for hundreds of years !!
Now, had India sided with the US other than the USSR, then we would have worse off than what we currently are !! And some members here are confused between communism and socialism !! Folks, our constitution follows the Socialist ideology, we are not Communist !! Please look up the meanings of these two terms before you post ! I don't we think would have developed any more or would have richer than what we currently are. It is because of the socialist ideals that helped us grow as a nation and develop the potential our people had in all fields of the economy and society. Please remember my friends that a nation whose majority of population is very poor can never develop itself under the Capitalist ideology, since it will only make few people stubbornly rich and rest all equally poor, as all the wealth and resources would be concentrated in the hands of very few people and they will have a monopoly which would be disastrous to the have-nots !! It was because of our socialist ideals and help from the Soviets that we were able to learn and build big industries like thermal and nuclear power plants, the Indian railways, ports, automobiles, manufacturing and heavy industries, companies like Tata, Birla, institutions like the IITs, IIMs, AIIMS, media like Doordarshan and AIR etc. !!! Remember the Soviets never hijacked our economy or our resources, they always helped us in learning the building block and then apply and run them on our own in the future ! Whereas, Americans would have opened their own companies here, taken away our resources for their own benefit and to make their nation richer, there would have been campuses of American universities instead of IITs, IIMs etc, which would have benefited very few since they would have been expensive and out of reach of the common man, same would have been the case with healthcare and primary education, leaving the not-so-well-off common man in post-independence India, to fend for themselves, even the basic necessities of life would have been difficult to afford for them ! People would have been driving around in Ford, GM and Chevrolet cars, albeit a very of them, as there would have been no Ambassador, Premier or Maruti that a lot many can afford, home appliances would have been dominated by White-Westinghouse and Electrolux brands, again very few would be able to afford them, as there would have been no BPL, Videocon or Onida etc. ! In essence, what I want to say is that it would have robbed the very idea of an independent nation able to stand on its own in all spheres !! I agree liberalization of the economy is very important and ours started very late in 1991, but that was the short sightedness of our leaders who didn't sense the opportunity, the Chinese were smarter in sensing the opportunity and started opening up their economy with exceptional reforms since the beginning of the 80's and it led to their current success ! We would been far better had we opened up our economy if not more earlier, then atleast the same time as the Chinese did.
Also, some members pointed that other nations also followed the US's ideals and are well off today, then I would ask which nations ?? Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey !!! Let me remind you that all these countries were far better off than we were even long back i.e 5-6 decades back and they had a fraction of our population even around that time and still does today !!! So you see, that is what is the huge difference is between them and us !! Though the success of Malaysia as a nation is worth noting since they were as bad a state as we were at the time of their independence which was much later than ours in 1963, though the population factor is again substantial !