Swarajya, March 16, 1963
One of our top industrialists held in the highest esteem in all circles, in India and abroad, Mr. J. R. D. Tata said at that meeting that agriculture was stagnant already but the new tax proposals will make industry also stagnant. The Government of India, he pointed out, wanted Indian industrialists to secure the participation of foreign parties in the equity capital of new companies, but with the super profits tax now proposed, there was not a single chance of foreign equity participation in Indian companies.
An anna and three quarters more is the increase in the price of a bottle of kerosene. The use of kerosene oil is the only share the poverty-stricken masses in our country have in modern civilization. Must these people be made to pay so much more for a bottle of kerosene? Is this the socialistic pattern about which there is so much talk pro and con? Would any other people in the world allow a budget to have a hearing in the national assembly which includes this kind of increase in the indirect tax the poor man has perforce to pay if he is to light a fire and have a dim lamp in his hut?
Through taxation and inflation and sadist folly, we may over-prove our earnestness and ruin the economy and the morale of the country.
My dear friend, Mr. Morarji Desai, beating his own record in firmness, declared in Bombay on Saturday (March 9) that “the people of India will have to submit to heavy taxation from year to year until we are successful in throwing out the aggressor”. Mr. Desai’s faith in money is remarkable. I am afraid, if he sticks to this resolution of “heavy taxation from year to year”, he will succeed in throwing in the aggressor, not in throwing him out.
Mr. Desai is not only firm, but quite proud of his budget. “I do not think anywhere in the world anyone has taxed as I have taxed,” he said to a special meeting in Bombay. What he claims is tragically true. At a meeting in Delhi organized by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, a very senior Civil Servant of the Government of India who has recently retired as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, expressed the view that the budget was directly contrary to the requirements of the situation. He uttered the grave warning that the tax proposals were likely to aggravate the very Emergency that they were intended to meet. One of our top industrialists held in the highest esteem in all circles, in India and abroad, Mr. J. R. D. Tata said at that meeting that agriculture was stagnant already but the new tax proposals will make industry also stagnant. The Government of India, he pointed out, wanted Indian industrialists to secure the participation of foreign parties in the equity capital of new companies, but with the super profits tax now proposed, there was not a single chance of foreign equity participation in Indian companies.
An anna and three quarters more is the increase in the price of a bottle of kerosene. The use of kerosene oil is the only share the poverty-stricken masses in our country have in modern civilization. Must these people be made to pay so much more for a bottle of kerosene? Is this the socialistic pattern about which there is so much talk pro and con? Would any other people in the world allow a budget to have a hearing in the national assembly which includes this kind of increase in the indirect tax the poor man has perforce to pay if he is to light a fire and have a dim lamp in his hut?
When at Coimbatore, last week, I said with reference to the compulsory savings scheme that it would have been much better if the Government had nationalized all banks, my sarcasm appears to have been lost on the more important reporters and it has been published that I had actually suggested this nationalization ! The language papers—it was in Tamil I spoke—rightly understood the bitter irony and put it out correctly.
It seems as if some people actually believe that if our women obey the Finance Minister and discard themselves of their old-fashioned earrings and gold wristlets and put on the costume jewellery of actresses, the Chinese will be charmed out of their evil intentions and go back!
It is not all so easy. The key is with the Prime Minister and his capacity to make up his mind to infuse confidence in the West. There should be no more to-be-or-not-to-be attitudes, but a firm deterrent should be promptly established by speedy contact with powerful friends. We must take not only aid but, more important than that, counsel on all matters from the West. And for this we must dissolve the present surface tensions, the reticences and the cautions of people who have a right to be at least as proud as ourselves.
Through taxation and inflation and sadist folly, we may over-prove our earnestness and ruin the economy and the morale of the country. Not foolhardy isolation but courageous and quick diplomatic moves to bring into being a joint front against China—this is what the situation calls for, not an Afro-Asian Solidarity front but a positive military front of superior power. The ‘blood and tears’ of Churchill and of the brave nation he loved and led are quite different things from the sadist tyrannies of our pinchback chancellors of the exchequer. Our nation too will sweat and bleed bravely, but it asks for sound and sensible leadership with a due sense of humility and proportion, and with an eye that looks around for true friends and attracts their trust and love and comradeship as did Churchill.
