F e b r u a r y 4 , 1961
T H E ECONOMIC W E E K L Y A N N U A L
jealous of their newly won freedom
and are, not l i k e l y easily to mortgage
it to anyone. But there is always a
danger that what is carefully guarded at the front door may he unsuspectingly whisked away f r o m the
back. It is for that reason that disunity can be such a curse to A f r i ca. N o r m a l sanity is unable to prevail in times of conflict and dispute;
and if these unfortunate conditions
do arise, the Congo has already
shown us that interested outsiders
w i l l not be slow to break d o w n the
harriers of A f r i c a n neutrality and
try to clean up. Nonalignment on
a continent-wide scale in A f r i c a is
impossible without pan-Africanism,
in the spirit if not in the actual letter.
Of course, one can easily exaggerate the actual .signs of A f r i c a n
disunity at present; hut it is perhaps
undeniable that a d i v i s i o n along the
lines of French and English-speaking Africans is already emerging
quite strongly in the ease of the
N o r t h e r n and Western territories.
The danger is that a more invidious
k i n d of polarisation may develop
f r o m this d i v i s i o n , w i t h the West
backing the former French A f r i c a
and the East p i t t i n g itself behind
the " m i l i t a n t " regimes of Ghana.
Guinea and M a l i . The last two are
not English-speaking, but they have
fallen out w i t h France and arc ideologically in strong sympathy w i t h
Ghana, ft is pertinent to note that
two r i v a l ''summits" 1 have taken
place in A f r i c a in the last few
weeks one of the "moderates" in
Brazzaville and one of the
"militants" in Gasablanca. T h i s underlines
the sort of danger w h i c h stares
A f r i c a in the face.
The Africans
must strive for u n i t y , but not in
such a way that they give rise to
the establishment of separate,
and
perhaps hostile, blocks w i t h i n A f r i c a
itself.
Under a l l the circumstances
o b t a i n i n g at the present time, it is
understandable
that Dr N k r u m a h
and Mr T o n re should be anxious to
widen the area of u n i t y
fas
as
immediately possible,
but the new
year should teach A f r i c a that slower
unity achieved without the participation of r i v a l blocks is a better goal
than swift and hasty alignments
which arc m u t u a l l y antagonistic.
The Last Thousand Feet
L A S T year the I n d i a n expedition
to Mount Everest struggled valiantly to reach the dizzy height of
twenty-eight thousand feet and yet
failed to conquer the last thousand
feet. The I n d i a n Hockey Team, at
the O l y m p i c Games. gave a magnificent performance but f a i l e d to w i n
the final match. The p o l i t i c a l integration of India has been the prime
objective of our leaders since Independence and vet the happenings in
Assam. Punjab and U t t a r Pradesh
arc p a i n f u l reminders of our failure
to achieve that goai.
The Second
Five-Year Plan has scored many
s t r i k i n g successes hut has failed to
achieve the rate of growth it had
aimed at.
Is all this just a coincidence or
is there something inherent in the
Indian way of life or the I n d i a n way
of d o i n g things that we so often
f a i l to put in the last supreme
effort w h i c h makes all the difference
between succces and failure?
It is
certainly not c o m f o r t i n g to be reminded that in the T h i r d Battle of
Panipat. the bi-centenary anniversary of which falls this year, as in
several other historic battles against
invaders. We displayed great hero
ism only to f a i l u l t i m a t e l y .
"It is not for man to command
success but we shall do better, we
shall deserve it" is an admirable
sentiment which may do for those
w h o - a r c p h i l o s o p h i c a l l y inclined, as
we are well known to be, but it is
one of the facts of life that 'deservi n g success' is no subtitute for ' w i n -
n i n g success' and the lesson of hist o r y is that success generally comes
not to the 'correct but cautious
wooers' but to those who make up
their mind to ' w i n at all costss
not to those who play to the gallery
but to those who press on towards
the goal single-minded. Single-mi ruled ness is not. unfortunately, a characteristic of the average I n d i a n .
Lack of determination at this
moment, which is by all accounts
the most crucial in our history, w i l l
have serious consequences for the
future. I n d i a is in a better position
today to lake calculated risks than
she was ever before or, perhaps, w i l l
be in the foreseeable future.
In
P r i m e M i n i s t e r Nehru she has a
great u n i f y i n g force whose w r i t runs
throughout the country. The same
party is in power in all the States.
India has acquired a prestige and
an importance, w h i c h have prompted foreign Governments, both of the
West and the East, to offer her very
substantial assistance for economic
development.
The
political
and
economic stability which I n d i a has
been able to achieve is not only helpi n g the emergence of many new
enterprises w i t h i n the country but is
also attracting entrepreneurs f r o m
abroad.
The vast m a j o r i t y of the
people are solidly behind the Government, notwithstanding the cont r a r y impression which some of the
national newspapers controlled by
big business houses may give, f r o m
the false picture of rack and r u i n
w h i c h they paint.
116
A n d yet our national leaders, surp r i s i n g l y enough, are not prepared
to press these political and economic advantages home and curb the
forces of reaction and disintegrat i o n . Instead, they prefer patchworksolutions in the political field and
adopt the line of least resistance in
the economic, quite oblivious to the
consequences
of
such
indecisive
action. T h e i r halting; approach to
the T h i r d Five Year Plan and hesitation to take the risk of pushing
the country's development to the
m a x i m u m is the latest example of
such indecision. Is it not disconcerti n g that they should doubt their
a b i l i t y to raise resources beyond
Rs 7.500 crores when all are agreed
that there is real need for about 10
per cent more. One cannot help
feeling that it is lack of determination and of courage of conviction
rather than incapacity to raise 10
per cent more of resources w h i c h
accounts for this faintheartedness.
One reason given for the hesitation to raise more resources is that
the requisite foreign assistance for
sustaining higher investment w i l l not
be f o r t h c o m i n g . Calculations show
that if Rs 3,200 crores of a i d assumed for the D r a f t Outline, is
available,
it should be possible to
implement a Rs 8,000-crore plan of
the pattern now envisaged, w i t h the
same amount of foreign a i d , p r o v i d ed "care is taken to ensure that
foreign exchange is not frittered
away. Besides, if f r i e n d l y countries
are prepared to give us Rs 3.200
THE ECONOMICAL WEEKLY
F e b r u a r y 4, 1961
9
croree, it should not be too difficult
to persuade them to give another Rs
100 or 200 crores, if that is a l l that
stands between us and the highest
attainable rate o f g r o w t h . The argument that a bigger p l a n cannot be
c a r r i e d out because of f o r e i g n exchange shortage must, therefore, be
treated as a piece of specious pleading.
The f o r e i g n exchange position on
the eve of the T h i r d Plan, it is comp l a i n e d by some, is very much
worse than what it was on the eve
of the Second Plan- If one o n l y
looks to the sterling balances, it may
appear to be so. But if the foreign
exchange in sight, both owned and
b o r r o w e d , on the eve of the Second
Plan is compared w i t h that on the
eve of the T h i r d Plan,
it w i l l be
seen that we have now substantially
larger foreign exchange resources
than we. had five years ago. At the
t i m e of the Second Plan,
foreign
countries w i r e quite unprepared to
meet our massive requirements—
there was no ' a i d I n d i a club' then
—and yet we got much larger aid
than we had planned for. Now that
they are prepared and even organised to give us assistance on a
large scale and are also appraised
of our needs f a i r l y well, it is surely
not unrealistic to assume that aid
of the order of Rs 11200 or 3.400
crores should be f o r t h c o m i n g . Neither should it be difficult to increase
our exports by another 10 per cent
a year, if we go about it in a determined way, Far f r o m foreign exchange h o l d i n g up development,
j u d g i n g f r o m the inadequacy of the
preparations made so far. I n d i a may
not be able to utilise the a i d she
may get in the T h i r d P l a n period.
The advocates of a. smaller plan
also contend that it would not be
possible for the present Government
to raise the requisite internal resources for a bigger p l a n w i t h o u t
losing the elections or w i t h o u t expoking the country to r u i n .
It is
difficult to see how the Congress can
lose the next elections. A l l the opposition parlies. Communists. P S P,
Jan
Sangh and the
Swatantra,
are m u c h weaker today than in the
past, either on account of their own
mistakes or as a result of certain
combination of events.
Moreover,
the first two are themselves pleadi n g for a b o l d p l a n . In the c i r c u m stances, if any party is in a posit i o n to take seemingly u n p o p u l a r
decisions f o r raising larger resour-
ces f o r the Plan a n d yet w i n the
elections w i t h a decisive m a j o r i t y , it
i3 the Congress p a r t y . W h y should
the Congress w o r r y about the elections
today when Pandit N e h r u is still at
the helm of affairs, when product i o n has been going up both in
agriculture and industry and when
the intransigence of China and the
p o p u l a r r e v o l u t i o n against the activities of fissiparous sections and
groups w i t h i n the country have
united the nation behind Pandit
Nehru as never before
The argument that internal resources cannot, be raised by another
10 per cent or so over what has
been assumed in the figure of
Us 7,500 crores, seems to be i l l grounded. This w i l l only mean pushi n g up the rate of saving to 13 or
14 per cent as compared w i t h 20
to 25 per cent saved in so many
other countries today.
We should
give up all our talk of sacrifice and
austerity, determination to achieve
self sustained g r o w t h and presumption to become a great nation, if we
feel that we cannot step up the rate
of saving even to 13 per cent. A
simple comparison of the performance of I n d i a in m o b i l i s i n g savings
w i t h that of Japan or China should
really make us blush. A p a r t from
a n y t h i n g else, if the value of land
had risen by 20 to 25 times in a
metropolitan area l i k e Delhi and by
40 to 50 times in some new indust r i a l towns in the last 10 years, it
should be possible for Government
to raise a large p r o p o r t i o n of the
a d d i t i o n a l resources required from
land acquisition and sale alone.
W i t h a l l the f l a u n t i n g o f wealth t i n t
one sees in I n d i a n cities, is it really
to be believed that another Rs 300
to 400 crores of taxation w i l l i m p e r i l the country? W i t h all the
bureaucratic red-tape in our organisations for p r o m o t i n g savings ( i n c l u d i n g the Postal Savings B a n k ) ,
does it stand to reason that we
cannot raise Rs 200 or 300 crores
more, if we take steps to i m p r o v e
117
the efficiency of these agencies? A n d
finally, w i t h
all
the
uneconomic
price policies in p u b l i c enterprises,
can one seriously rule out the poss i b i l i t y of securing an additional
R.s 100 or 200 crores f r o m the surplus of these enterprises? It is not
lack of resources but of determination to lap the reources that is preventing the country f r o m accepting
straightway a financial plan of the
order of Rs 8,000 crores ( w i t h a
supplementary
plan
of
another
Rs 100 crores) w h i c h , according to
the Planning Commission, is the absolute m i n i m u m required by the
country. A n d it is quite obvious
that the inevitable result of this
over-cautions policy of a i m i n g low
rather than a i m i n g h i g h , as advocated by Pandit Nehru, w i l l be i n adequate preparation and insufficient
effort and hence incapacity to reach
the g o a l .
One cannot help feeling that the
lack of determination and s p i r i t of
adventure that h i s dogged India's
destiny in the past is also l i k e l y to
mar her future. As a nation, we are
perhaps apt to put too much prem i u m on caution and forget that
great things have been achieved in
the w o r l d not by the overcautious
and the prudent but by the hold, by
those who had the courage to take
calculated risks and readiness to
take the fullest advantage of every
o p p o r t u n i t y that presented itself. If
I n d i a fails to make the desired
progress in the next five years,
it
w i l l not be because of any lack of
capacity in the people or because
the forces ranged against her were
overwhelming, ft w i l l be due solely
to want of resolution and firmness
of purposes, to that f a i l u r e of
s p i r i t at the psychological moment
that madn our forbears lose the
battle of Panipat 200 years ago and
that benumbed our expendition to
M o u n t Everest when w i t h i n only a
thousand feel of the summit.
We
have to key up all our energies for
that final, last spurt-
THE
F e b r u a r y 4, 1961
118
ECONOMIC
WEEKLY
ANNUAL