They might have done a bit of that in South Africa and possibly Venezuela. I know it was being “debated” in those countries.
India’s early attempts at pulling themselves into the 20th century involved the use of one person sewing machines. They attempted to replicate the “sweat shop” model of rooms of people sewing on individual machines. It didn’t work out so well.
Someone could have easily “overlooked” the complicity of the Indian governmental policies and concluded that “free markets” don’t work so well for Indian workers. And the answer for India WASN’T that their fledgling sewing industry needed tariff protection.
I wonder if this is what is going on with this paper.