Swarajya, July 7, 1962
It is possible to refuse to pay direct taxes and undergo the penalties, as Gandhiji taught. But how can a people refuse to pay indirect taxes except by denying to themselves the commodities necessary for existence? Excise and customs duties are such as one cannot refuse to pay without denying the where-withal for life.
While the Government has become rigidly unitarian, there is simultaneously going on a reckless process of national disintegration. The educational structure of the country and the universities are being broken up on language lines. The people are being divided while the Government is being made totalitarian and unitary. The universities are being isolated from one another in celebration of their centenaries! The mobility of intellectual India is being destroyed to appease and add to the tom-foolery of language patriotism. This fragmentation of educated India inevitably leads to discrimination, unemployment in the most sensitive section of the people, and hatred between region and region. The balkanization of men’s minds is not correlated to a corresponding decentralization of governance and local autonomy, but on the contrary is tied up to the growing rigidity of centralized power.
The Editor’s page in US News and World Report of June 25 winds up thus: ‘Call it inflation or price instability or by any other sophisticated phrase, but unfortunately, the purchasing power of the dollar today is 46 cents, compared to 100 cents in 1939. And that’s no myth”.
What is the present value of the Indian rupee, the rupee which is going to be reminted shortly? Those who have lived before the last war and since know what it was worth then and how low it has now fallen. The Indian rupee which was worth 16 annas in 1939 is now worth round about three annas. What we call a rupee is really only 20 cents in purchasing value. It is not silver and gold that have gone up in price; it is the rupee that has fallen in value. This debasement of our money is shown as a rise in the price of gold and silver.
If a businessman goes bankrupt, his shareholders and other creditors lose their investments. It does not destroy the value of money generally. The businessman cannot manufacture money to pay off his debts. But the Government in New Delhi can manufacture money, and as it goes deeper and deeper in debt and deficit, the value of all the money of all the people rots away.
The people have to submit to over-taxation, unless a Gandhi comes to show them the way to resist and put the Government in its place. It is possible to refuse to pay direct taxes and undergo the penalties, as Gandhiji taught. But how can a people refuse to pay indirect taxes except by denying to themselves the commodities necessary for existence? Excise and customs duties are such as one cannot refuse to pay without denying the where-withal for life. “A power over a man’s subsistence is a power over his will.” The continuing concentration of governmental, financial and economic power in the hands of the Delhi ministers and officials is the weapon by which freedom is being destroyed, and an Indian edition of totalitarianism is being established. The State governments, once thought to be great institutions in Indian policy, have lost all power. They now live on doles from Delhi. In addition, they have to levy new taxes at the bidding of the Delhi government, whatever their own conscience may tell them. The federal form of government which was the core of the Indian Constitution has now become a total unreality. The single party’s monolithic structure, and its increasing irremovability from office, has corrupted the Constitution.
While the Government has become rigidly unitarian, there is simultaneously going on a reckless process of national disintegration. The educational structure of the country and the universities are being broken up on language lines. The people are being divided while the Government is being made totalitarian and unitary. The universities are being isolated from one another in celebration of their centenaries! The mobility of intellectual India is being destroyed to appease and add to the tom-foolery of language patriotism. This fragmentation of educated India inevitably leads to discrimination, unemployment in the most sensitive section of the people, and hatred between region and region. The balkanization of men’s minds is not correlated to a corresponding decentralization of governance and local autonomy, but on the contrary is tied up to the growing rigidity of centralized power. This leads to general unhappiness. Yet every dung is supposed to be intended for the general welfare, like a certain well-known structure that is said to be paved with very good intentions.
