Free Economy Or Regimentation

A very pro-Congress newspaper has two leading articles, one of last Sunday and another of last Tuesday, from which the following forthright remarks are given below:

No country can mortgage its future to a single party however strong and disciplined. A party, too, can be an instrument of tyranny. And we must remember Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Honesty compels the admission that the Congress Party already betrays signs of this taint. It is thus not surprising that the intelligent voter is faced with a dilemma as he approaches the third general elections……. Perhaps this dilemma can be resolved by the Congress asking leaders of other parties to associate with it in a national government just as it did on the morrow of Independence.

The most astonishing aspect of Mr. Nehru’s inaugural address at the annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry is its utter lack of concern for the details of practical business in running the economy. At a time when the country is faced with a crisis of organization which has erupted into a crisis of transport and shortage of raw materials, the Prime Minister satisfies himself with uttering such emotive phrases as private wealth and public squalor. The main issue today is not of sharing bread but of enlarging its size……. One cannot conjure away a crisis by a phrase.

     It may be admitted that the Prime Minister is adored by the people whatever the causes of this affection may be. The party is desperately clinging to this personal affection. It has no other support by way of popular approval of its doings. A twentieth century edition of the tub-thumping of revolutionary Paris, some ancient generalities, and provocative references to the wealth of a few as against the poverty of the many, keep up the reputation of the ruling party for a concern for the poor. Its policies strike at the root of production and prosperity, on what both rich and poor must depend, viz., the size of the loaf which has to be divided, to use the figure adopted in the above quotations. Agricultural production has gone down. Imports of raw materials for industry, such as cotton and jute, have alarmingly increased. The export potentiality of the country is not visible through the most optimistic microscope. The nation is being harassed and ruined through thoughtless taxation direct and indirect, and a borrowing policy with no corresponding plan for repayment but simply hanging on by a slender thread to the current cold war.

     There is no hope for the future, unless the nation makes up its mind to drive the present ruling party out of office and put it, such as it is, in Opposition. The country needs a wise and steady government which does not believe in exhibitionism but in real production and real concern for the poor. The Planning Commission should be supplemented and counterpoised by a federation of the various organizations, representing national, industrial and agricultural production and distribution. Otherwise, there is no chance for wise policies to issue from the central secretariat.

     The suggestion in the first of the above quotations that a national government may be formed by picking up a few individuals from the present Opposition parties and shaping them into inferior partners within the Congress Cabinet has not much meaning. The prerequisite for a good and useful coalition is a fairly well-balanced Opposition party from which leaders could be co-opted into the ruling party. Of what use would it be to co-opt socialists and communists with congressmen? As for a few prominent non-party individuals to be picked up for being co-opted, they would represent no organized parties nor anyone but themselves. They will share the fate of Dr. John Matthai and Mr. C. D. Deshmukh. They will serve only to shield the Government’s errors and will not be able to moderate its rash policies. A coalition can be thought of and built on the relative strength of various parties, once this is disclosed in the elections.  The notion that things could be improved by some trick of internal healing without disturbing the Congress has no political validity.

     The real issue is whether the nation should lean towards free economy or towards regimentation, if we want to release national energy and attain that degree of prosperity on which the general welfare can confidently rest. The Congress has adopted the creed of regimentation and this bias dogmatically permeates all its policies, and blinds it to the requirements of the situation. The people should vote for releasing the national energy and this means dismissing the Congress. When once that is done and the nation’s vote is clear, then a popular cabinet will come into being without any difficulty, coalition or other.

     The coming general elections should not be allowed to become a show based on money and organizational technique. It should be a mass movement even as the nation voted in the general elections that resulted in the formulation of Congress governments in all the provinces of India in 1937. Neither money nor organizational techniques, nor jeeps nor entertainments played any part then in the solid vote that the nation gave to the Congress, but pure and simple popular feeling that India should be governed by her own leaders. Similarly, now the nation should make it plain that the stifling regimentation of the national economy should be terminated and national energy released towards prosperity as in West Germany.