Labour Monthly, September 1944
Source: Labour Monthly, September 1944, p. 286, book review by R.P. D.;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.
A Plan of Economic Development for India by Sir P. Thakurdas and others (Penguin Special, 9d).
Our Economic Problem by P.A Wadia and K.T. Merchant (New Book Company, Bombay, Rs6.8).
The publication in Britain and India of the Bombay Plan for Indian economic development is an important sign of the times. The Plan has been drawn up by eight leading Indian industrialists, including four directors of the Tata combine and three directors of the Reserve Bank of India. They set out detailed proposals for a Fifteen Year Plan to treble our national income, double the income per head; increase industrial production five times and agricultural production by 130 per cent. and establish a universal education and health service. They make clear that they regard as an indispensable political assumption the establishment of a National Government with full powers in economic matters and legislating for the whole of India. A delegation of Indian industrialists will be visiting Britain and the United States with a view to exploring the necessary basis of support and co-operation for large-scale economic development in India.
It of undoubted positive value that a plan of this nature should appear at the present time. The plan is, of course, a plan of Indian Big Capital, but of Indian Big Capital striving for Indian independence from foreign control and for the maximum development of Indian productive resources, and thus fulfilling a progressive role and to this extent coinciding with the national interests of the Indian people. Irrespective of necessary criticism on particular weaknesses of the plan, the outstanding positive value of this Memorandum as a basis for discussion lies in the following features: –
It represents a bold and far reaching scheme of economic and social development, and will help to encourage a bold approach on the part of public opinion in India and in Britain, and a recognition of the vast possibilities of developing India’s productive resources on a large scale.
It sets the definite aim of rapidly overcoming poverty and backwardness by such large-scale development of Indian productive resources, with special emphasis on the development of power resources and basic industry.
It sets out concrete proposals, and at any rate, rough provisional estimates, in terms of figures (by no means so vague or unconsidered as some critics here have suggested) for fulfilling these aims.
It recognises the necessity of a National Government with adequate power as the indispensable means for carrying out such a plan, and thus takes a definite political alignment, avoiding the common pitfall of economic planning in a vacuum of political neutrality.
The main weaknesses spring inevitably from the big industrialist source of this plan. These weaknesses are especially marked in the following respects: –
Agricultural development. The proposals for tackling this crucial problem of Indian economy are wholly inadequate. Irrigation, soil-conservation, consolidation of holdings and co-operative societies to assist in paying off rural debt can barely touch the fringes of the problem, so long as there is no attempt to tackle the basic issues of land tenure and land ownership. Although it is obvious that it will require a very large-scale capital expenditure and far-reaching reorganisation to raise the technical level and productivity of Indian agriculture, the Plan allocates £930 million for agricultural development as against £3,360 million for industry. The proposals would leave the problems of the mass of the poorest peasantry, and those who have lost their land, unsolved.
The question of the market corresponding to the contemplated increase of production. This is bound up with the proceeding question of agricultural development and the problem of the poor peasantry. The plan endeavours to separate the question of distribution from production, holding over distribution for a subsequent report.
The role of the State in industry and the economic field is similarly held over. Yet the fulfilment of a plan of national development will require the State to fulfil a very considerable role in respect of ownership, control direct of investment; and it is doubtful if any effective plan can be carried though without State ownership in the key industries.
Finance. The plan proposes to raise £2,550 million of created money with the consequent danger of inflation throwing, the severest burdens on the poorest, while there are no proposals for a more effective system of taxing wealth.
The question of the co-operation of the people as the indispensable basis for the success of the plan. A paragraph under this heading deals only with the training of technicians and managers. No attention is given to the necessity of democratic initiative and co-operation of the people themselves through their organisations. Peasants’ organisation, workers in industry, Trade Unions, etc. if the whole plan is not to be sunk in a bureaucratic quagmire, breeding fascist dangers.
The Bombay Plan, while a valuable contribution to stimulate discussion should not be regarded as the plan of the Indian national movement, still in process of preparation by the National Planning Commission of the Congress, set up under the chairmanship of Nehru, shortly before the war, and which, it may be hoped, will shortly be able to resume its labours under more favourable conditions.
A parallel indication of the increasing concern of Indian discussion with current economic problems for progressive development is afforded by the appearance of Our Economic Problem, a volume of 536 pages, by two Indian university professors published last year in Bombay This is a useful and industrious collection of information and statistics covering most of the fields of Indian economy (sometimes from derivative sources, not always acknowledged) but with mediocre insight into the problems. The outlook is vaguely national in sympathy, in general academically neutral, and ending with a religious conclusion. Nevertheless useful as a collection of materials.
R.P. D.