Swarajya, October 24, 1964
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.
The inherent inefficiency of official management of trade has not taken many days to show itself. “Co-operatives not lifting Kuruvai paddy stocks; Threat of glut in Tanjavoor; Initial slowness in clearing inevitable”. These headlines, which express the complaints as well as the unconvincing official explanation, have appeared in the dailies.
The built-in inefficiency of government management of what naturally belongs to the traditional wholesale private trade cannot hide itself. It gets exposed in less than a couple of days. At the other end, in the towns and cities, the long queues of poor people standing for hours on end for a litre or two of rice are a harrowing sight. The black-market keeps the better-off classes silent about the situation while police power holds the poor back from too often showing their indignation and distress by disorderly conduct. Government should realize the danger of the situation. Quite a few cases of riotous public reactions have found notice in the daily papers. The following is a sample:
HUNGRY MOB STOPS FOOD LORRIES IN SALEM
Salem, Oct. 13
Hundreds of people starved in several parts of the town standing in the hot sun before fair price shops till late afternoon for a small quantity of rice.
Retail shops that had been selling rice put up “no stock” boards today in Ammapet.
People stopped two lorries on the Cuddalore road on the border of the municipality and did not allow them to proceed to Leigh Bazaar. The police rushed to the spot and arranged for the sale of 151 bags of food grains carried by the lorries.
Two more lorries carrying food grains were escorted to the Cooperative Marketing Society by the police.
The Mettur Chemicals co-operative was permitted to purchase paddy from Trichy but its representatives have come back empty-handed.
A re-examination is called for of land policies, the fatal error of which has brought about this short supply. Of course prices, and the inflation which has caused them to soar high, must be looked into also and a completely fresh mind untrammelled by charismatic obsessions brought to bear on government plans and policies together.
Government cannot follow a policy of terrorizing and ruining big producers and at the same time expect the urban markets to be steadily supplied with grain. Persistence in and tightening of zonal restrictions may be good short-term tactics for making government purchases on the threshing floor easier at the expense of scarcity areas in the neighbourhood: but it is not a policy that will further national integration. Buying at pistol- point is no doubt easy, but the cost of it is disunity of the nation. We are told that Government rice-mills with up-to-date machinery are going to be set up. These cannot of course increase production. They can reduce the B-6 vitamin content still further. That however will not be a gain.
Thomas Brady, columnist in the New York Times, discussing the food situation in India, wrote (September 26):
Food shortages are clearly the result of errors and omissions of the Nehru administration, but Shastri must face popular indignation. Nehru’s charisma might have served to silence the howls of hungry men, but Shastri must feed his people as best he can, and the best way of doing it, ‘whether you like it or not’ is he told Parliament to get wheat from the United States.
The best way for immediate escape from popular indignation may be the import of wheat from the US. But the only way to solve the problem properly is to scrap the erroneous land policies and restore confidence in the farmers’ minds that their lands are safe from socialist maraud and from Constitutional amendments to frustrate the Supreme Court’s decisions that the Fundamental Rights built into the Constitution should not be violated. Mr. Munikanniah who was till recently a High Court Judge of Andhra has written a whole book deprecating the policy of the Government of India, under the Congress Party rule, amending the Constitution to wipe Part III thereof out of existence. Mr. Narasaraju, who was till recently Advocate-General of Andhra, has issued a statement which winds up caustically as follows:
“The Lok Sabha in the plenitude of its wisdom and by reason of the numerical strength of the Congress Party may amend the Constitution but the more honest and direct amendment of the Constitution would be to repeal the part relating to the Fundamental Rights.”
Judge Munikanniah puts the case thus: “An amendment is to develop and improve provisions within the framework. Negation as the purpose of amendment is unknown”. The Articles relating to security of ownership and enjoyment of land which formed an essential part of what may be called the Magna Carta chapter of our Constitution have been so tampered with, that the best legal minds in India have revolted against it. Something must be done to restore the fundamental rights unequivocally; then we may rest content with temporary measures to cope with shortages resulting from “the errors and Omissions of the Nehru administration.”
