Swarajya, April 6, 1963
I had thought that the fault in Sri Morarji Desai was self-righteousness misleading him into the immediate use of power for what he regarded as a good purpose.... But we now find that under his inspiration Government is going to spend public money on a 14-carat (and below) jewellery-making National Institute! This means State expenditure to keep up the folly of wearing tinsel trinkets.
A policy of shutting out the cow and its good milk as far too costly and encouraging hydrogenated Vanaspati would be on par with this policy of 14-carat gold. A policy of putting out of employment lakhs of artisans must result in all sorts of makeshifts and deceptions at the expense of the public exchequer. But spending public funds for boosting vulgarities is most inexcusable.
I had thought that the fault in Sri Morarji Desai was self-righteousness misleading him into the immediate use of power for what he regarded as a good purpose, and being more interested in that than in sustaining the freedom of occupation or the other rights of citizens in a civilized community. I had a notion that Sri Morarji Desai planned to save our womenfolk from the expensive lure of trinkets, and that his attack on gold was not merely a broad-based drive on behalf of the exchequer to get at people’s savings but also a puritanic taste-reform and austerity drive. But we now find that under his inspiration Government is going to spend public money on a 14-carat (and below) jewellery-making National Institute! This means State expenditure to keep up the folly of wearing tinsel trinkets. “Don’t read Shakespeare or Scott or Dickens or R. L. Stevenson or Tennyson but go to the new National Library of detective and horror stories. They are cheaper and even more interesting. I have travelled abroad and I have seen people in America and Britain reading these books wherever I went,” Sri Morarji would perhaps say.
A policy of shutting out the cow and its good milk as far too costly and encouraging hydrogenated Vanaspati would be on par with this policy of 14-carat gold. Do we want a policy of helping the baser quality to replace the better, and using national funds for this purpose? The addition to our national laboratories, in the shape of a base metal jewellery institute, would be an awkward memorial for the gold banishment movement on which Sri Morarji Desai has set his heart. It would be as vulgar as profitless. A policy of putting out of employment lakhs of artisans must result in all sorts of makeshifts and deceptions at the expense of the public exchequer. But spending public funds for boosting vulgarities is most inexcusable.
