Swarajya, August 13, 1966
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.
Independence Day which is coming on August 15 is a great day— more important than Republic Day, as once Nehru and I agreed when we discussed the possible merging of the two celebrations into one. But greater than Independence Day will be Freedom Day, when we achieve freedom from Statist bondage of all those who labour for India’s progress and prosperity, a bondage that kills the spirit of the nation and has brought, as a public symbol of our Government’s follies and failure, the devaluation of our rupee. Akbar must have turned in his grave in Agra on June 5, who had seen our rupee in his time bring 2s. 6d. from the West in exchange, now fetching officially only eleven pence, and that too only to favoured businessmen, and but eight pence in the free market of money changers.
Central Planning and State management to organize the activities of production and distribution of a population of four hundred and eighty millions have failed. The correct calculations, solid foundations, and close controls that this policy demanded were physically impossible. The national economy is not a thing that stops still for our sake. It is a fast running stream. It is therefore no wonder the Plans have failed. Not only this; the policy has caused great distress and a deplorable deterioration of character all round. This erroneous scheme of national governance and production must be given up and instead of it, the free way of production and distribution with its subordination to the consumer’s sovereign control working through the competitive market must be restored. The most important reform, humility must be restored. Nation must have priority over party. All this can be done only by removing the Congress Government. Free Economy cannot be restored except by removing the Congress Party from power. When this is done India can celebrate Freedom Day and not merely Independence Day as we now do.
My eyes are not in good condition, but I could not lie down until I finished reading the Basic History of Germany* (185 pp) by Hubertus Lowenstein which was given to me by the German Consul-General in Madras. We are taken in this book swiftly through the history of a great people from the eighth century down to the present time. No other nation, I believe, has gone through such suffering and borne material and spiritual damage as the Germans have done. The folly, irrepressible anger, and wickedness of a leader brought down on the nation’s head what was all but total and complete destruction. The first plan of the victorious world united against Germany was to destroy all German industry and make of her people a pastoral tribe never to rise again. But better counsels prevailed, and what was destroyed was reconstructed with the generous help of those who destroyed; and we know how Germany has demonstrated the unconquerable strength of her spirit. The total German loss of lives due to the World War and its aftermath is estimated at 6,000,000 of which over 3,000,000 were civilians. The air attack on Dresden alone in February, 1945, caused the death of 250,000 persons.
The Nazis killed 3,000,000 Germans (of whom 1,700,000 were Jews). It is calculated that in the three Western zones 2.3 million homes had been destroyed. In Berlin 32 per cent of all living space was in ruins, 326,000 homes in West Berlin and 190,000 in East Berlin. During the first post-war years German currency lost all value and cigarettes assumed the function of currency: one pack of American cigarettes passed for 100 Marks. Rationed food went down sometimes below the level of concentration camp rations. Ten million expellees poured back into the ruined cities and the starving country.
Free elections were first held after the war in January 1945. Byrnes and Marshall, American Secretaries of State, planned the rehabilitation of Germany and the plan succeeded. In June 1948 currency reform was introduced. The new German Mark backed by the spirit of the German people has now become one of the hardest currencies of the world. Germany under the Federal Republic has re-entered the community of nations. 7,000,000 new houses were built after the war. The joint efforts of labour and management, of consumers and producers, and indeed of all strata of the population, have with American aid recreated Germany. Industrial production which was 41 per cent in 1947 (base 1936-1 00) steadily went up to reach 320 per cent in 1963. Since 1950, the Federal Republic has spent, from public and private sources, 20 billion Marks for foreign aid. At the German Universities, there are now 22,000 students from African and Asian nations enrolled-ten per cent of the entire student body. Is this not an epic of the unconquerable spirit of man and the wonder of human stamina?
No individual, no nation, suffers for himself or itself. They suffer and recover to set examples for humanity as a whole. Can those German tragedy of long political disunity and frustration, and of uncontrollable anger and hatred as a result of the First World War and the treaty imposed on her as a result of defeat, and the suffering that followed the Second World War, and the noble story of the all-conquering human spirit and stamina which enabled Germany to overcome everything and be reborn impress no lesson on us, people and leaders in India, and lift us from feebleness and folly and guide us to wisdom, hope and strength?
“It has become customary in view of the striking pace of reconstruction in the Federal Republic and West Berlin, to speak about an economic miracle.. When at the lowest point of post-war development all political and economic power had vanished in Germany, the forces of the mind, spiritual and moral, emerged as the only true reality; writes Lowenstein in his book. Let us, too, never forget this ultimate reality—the forces of the mind, spiritual and moral.
Bhargo devasya dheemahi
dhiyo yo nah prachodayaat.
Rishi Viswamitra gave us these words for daily prayer to be addressed to the Sun as being for us on earth God’s most manifest form—the Sun from whom we came into being and from whom we draw all our nourishment and our life forces. The human spirit can work miracles.
* Inter-Nationes, Bonn
