Swarajya, September 2, 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.
Mr. Masani pleaded manfully for a very good cause in the course of the Income Tax Bill debate in the Lok Sabha. The Government seeks to tax charities if they are not for the benefit of everyone but for the benefit of the donor's community or race or religion or caste. The Government has also introduced a clause to tax trusts held by any person which are for the benefit not of the public but for that of a particular community, and this with retrospective effect, on trusts even already constituted.
These shortsighted provisions may be considered by the thoughtless as consistent with the secular character and policy of the Government. They are wholly misconceived and calculated to dry up the natural springs of charity in this country. The limited socialism that good men voluntarily practise is far more precious than the so-called socialism emanating from taxation, and administered by officials. A little arithmetic is enough to show that such voluntary benefactions to various communities would cover the entire nation.
The clauses opposed by Mr. Masani and others are wholly in conflict with what Gandhiji wanted to educate our people into viz., the doctrine of trusteeship. The unselfishness and philanthropy involved in large bequests by fortunate individuals in favour of the numerous born and unborn people going by the name of a community, and to which they happen to belong by birth or religious affiliation, is sought to be treated by the Government as a worthless act and to be taxed like any other selfish indulgence and expenditure.
Nothing can be blinder than this policy and opposed to all Indian tradition and genius. This policy is based on ignorance of human nature. Mr. Masani and others should be congratulated for their valiant effort to set the matter right. But when the Government is bent on securing a monopoly of all charity in the country, and on drying up all voluntary compassion, arguments can be of no avail.
But payment to Congress Party funds is to be treated as legitimate expenditure under the recent legislation, and so it will be exempt from tax and will serve to bdng the slab down for the donor companies. The Finance Minister's answer on this immoral discrimination could not possibly pass. He knew very well what the legal position was. The education of the citizen into trusteeship, as Gandhiji desired, must be gradual. He must be taken through one concentric circle after another to the outer. most circle. Communal charities and trusts are a school for the broadminded citizenship that Gandhiji conceived as a goal. The whole-or-nothing policy will only serve to kill the instinct and not to broaden it. Indian welfare has to be built with native clay.
