Swarajya, March 16, 1963
After creating widespread and distressing unemployment among a whole race of self-employed artisans working on gold, by interfering in their well-established and innocent occupation, decreeing lawless laws uncoordinated with the habits of the people or the requirements of society, the Government is undertaking a childish and wasteful programme of ‘educating’ the children of these artisans to other professions, all of which offer no real opening to a fresh generation of entrants. It is amusing but the tragedy of it does not permit us to indulge in laughter.
The only way our Government knows of meeting any situation is to recruit a fresh army of clerks and accountants, and building ferro-concrete skyscrapers for the offices required for these employees and creating a housing shortage. How uneconomic this procedure is, every one knows. It is wasteful in the most important sense of misapplication of scarce national resources.
After creating widespread and distressing unemployment among a whole race of self-employed artisans working on gold, by interfering in their well-established and innocent occupation, decreeing lawless laws un-coordinated with the habits of the people or the requirements of society, the Government is undertaking a childish and wasteful programme of ‘educating’ the children of these artisans to other professions, all of which offer no real opening to a fresh generation of entrants. It is amusing but the tragedy of it does not permit us to indulge in laughter.
The only way our Government knows of meeting any situation is to recruit a fresh army of clerks and accountants, and building ferro-concrete skyscrapers for the offices required for these employees and creating a housing shortage. How uneconomic this procedure is, every one knows. It is wasteful in the most important sense of misapplication of scarce national resources.
The Finance Minister sets fire to villages and towns and then he begins digging for underground water to put out the fires! He is not going to improve the foreign exchange position by this employment anarchy he has brought into being. He has robbed thousands of poor people who had borrowed from money-lenders and small banks of the value of their pledged jewellery. In the name of Emergency and in ironic contrast to what a sense of emergency should dictate, the Gold Order has been passed in disregard of basic citizen rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
The idea of attacking smugglers and their activities by seeking to stop the demand for the commodity smuggled instead of by improving the administration is a confession of impotence. If penicillin from abroad is smuggled in, because doctors believe it is of better quality, would the Minister of Health seek to prohibit the use of all penicillin? Ghee is sold adulterated and we are unable to stop the evil. Would the Minister of Food issue a law prohibiting the use of ghee as a bad and unnecessary custom? The MR has not been able to keep out pressure tactics for acceptance of bad music; shall we therefore cut out all music saying it is waste of time to be singing and fiddling or hearing any music, when we can use it to spin on the Ambar charka? Why does Sri Morarji Desai make the mistake of thinking that he will succeed in putting an end to the liking for good gold by forcing adulterated gold on a people whose aesthetic sensitiveness, thank God, is not yet dead? The Finance Minister’s answers to questions are getting firmer and firmer. Alas for the notion that obstinacy is strength, when really it is dangerous weakness. Laurelled conquerors are on record, who changed their unpopular decisions and adopted more satisfying policies. But those who come to power in a ‘non-violent’ way can be worse tyrants and more rigid-headed than the older type. Alas that we have a connoisseur in high place Who thinks cheap yellow trinkets are better taste than holding gold for the nation in the shape of 22-carat jewellery on one’s body.
