Swarajya, March 4, 1961
Between ourselves, honest voter, these private monopolies created by the pernicious system of permits, licences, quotas and controls (to be extended now even to foreign capital which voluntarily comes into the private sector) make the Congress Party's rich friends richer, and the poor poorer. It is a close conspiracy; we have a battle between money and liberty, between dharma and atheism, between freedom and communism clothed in Congress robes.
Here is a party that sits in office and spends all the time at its disposal this year in selling or promising, or indirectly binding itself to sell to individuals, favours and monopolies, large or small, according to capacity, under the deceptive name of a controlled economy.
Controls are bad and cause more real harm to the economy than any good that is innocently calculated to issue therefrom. But when they are used just for the purpose of favouring some and disfavouring others, according as they favour the ruling clique or oppose it, they become unadulterated evil.
The wide world knows that what I have said is true. Everyone wants this permit- and-licence-raj should go and our economy freed from this post-war pestilence. I have undertaken a Herculean task. Not only are the Augean stables heavily laden with evil, but the very victims that suffer are afraid to rise in revolt, lest they meet immediate and fatal victimization. They are not confident that my mission will succeed and dread to be in a losing battle. May God give them the courage that comes only from His grace, the courage which enabled all the baffles of history to end in victory for the right cause against seemingly heavy odds.
The Congress Party hopes to win with its three weapons (1) astronomical sums of money collected from industrial, transport and other bosses at the point of the dagger, (2) the electoral advantage that helps a party in office in a land unused to real democracy, and whose tradition is to bow before official authority, and (3) the opportunity a party in power has to win when its multiple opponents vote against one another, so to say.
Taking the last first, I hope and believe that the folly of being divided into mutually counteracting groups, giving a chance to the Congress to get away with it through a gap in the triangle will be realized in time. The fallacy of egalitarian socialism based on envy and ignorance of the mechanism of wealth-production, I trust, will also be realized, and the socialism of the Congress rejected by every party. It is not socialism but just a cover for selling monopolies and favours. Much more honesty than is available in the Congress Party is required to give a proper foundation for any policy of controlled economy to do good. The most expedient policy is free competition among producers and distributors, so that the public at large, the consumers, may be the arbiters and not the monopoly-and- favours- selling clique in office.
As for the advantages accrueing from being in office and having the power to victimize, the sooner the unfortunate sufferers throw off fear and make a bid for liberty, the better. One more victory for the Congress Party would mean undiluted and unqualified arrogance and tyranny with no hope in the future for freedom. We must expose victimization to public gaze, which would turn the tables on the Congress Party at the elections and help to put an end to this barbarity which is inconsistent with the freedoms guaranteed in all democratic governments. Victimization is not so profitable a game when the elections are near and the Congress bosses know this.
Lastly, money power. Let me share With the public my faith that God will not allow this black-mailed accumulation of money-power to win. This world is not a place to live in, if indeed money alone could win parliamentary elections. Let money flow. Ill-gotten money had better get disbursed as soon as possible. It will not help but will soon breed its jealousies and quarrels. The people will vote against the ruling party for its bad administration. The falsehood of its promises is felt by all. Whoever takes the voters to the booth, whatever be the conveyance supplied and whatever be the scale of entertainments and the bribery, I feel there will be a tempestuous vote against the ruling clique. The money collected will be spent to no purpose.
The Congress party's total dependence on ill-gotten money and on its ministers holding office during the elections, and its anxiety to keep Opposition parties apart, conclusively prove its moral bankruptcy. People will rise in revolt and refuse to give it a further lease of authority.
I may be all wrong in my beliefs. But I cling to a faith that is founded on satyam eva jayate and Divine rule. Let us trust That Power and fight the battle for freedom, for swatantra in life and occupation.
A friend writes to me from Italy, one who was in India for a long time during an acute phase of our struggle for freedom; he writes to say that he 'imagines I am a humanitarian who does not believe in the stupidity of egalitarianism'. He is quite right. The egalitarian socialism of the Congress is a fallacy and a fraud, a mere election-carrot for the donkey the Congress takes the electorate to be. We must kick the rider down from our back, rider and carrot. The mechanism of wealth-production is something quite different from the socialism of the Congress, which ignores the incentive, the capital, the frugal management and the output of work needed for increase of wealth.
The Congress brand of socialism makes the rich richer through the monopolies and privileges the party sells to them. It makes the poor poorer by reason of the rising prices, resulting from the inflation brought about by its improvident Plan expenditure and deficit financing. The Congress brand of socialism does not reduce but makes greater the difference between the rich and the poor; and this, both materially and spiritually, through the class conflict it generates.
The creed of the Congress trusting in officials and their capacity, in preference to private producers and distributors, is ruinous to workers and ruinous to all concerned. The loss and ruin are already there but covered by foreign aid and loans, and the mystification of government accounts. The gigantic parasitism on foreign aid is a demonstration of the dependence we have involved ourselves in by our foolish and un-Gandhian ambitions after Independence. The situation, judged even from the mere material angle, is one of deplorable dependence making a ludicrous show on the background of non-alignment.
