As India’s much touted annual budget will be presented to Parliament shortly, the question in most middle-class minds will be how taxing the budget would be. The question that has not been addressed effectively is, the nature and magnitude of the tax-slippage in the higher echelon tax brackets, and making the poor taxpayers in a real sense by enriching them to have adequate taxable income.
Keeping this in mind, I reproduce below, one of my contributions to the Deccan Herald of February 18, 1978. While I may not agree now with my own social perceptions then, what is important to note here is, if anything, the economic condition of the poor has only exacerbated as a result of globalization, multi-national market manipulations, and so on, all catering to the needs of those who can afford to spend. Issues such as concerns about rural society, price stability, inflation, unemployment, illiteracy, migration, and land reforms, all have been wished away, and are now part of the sordid saga of India’s long lapses in economic and financial planning and management.
[*while we have had too many budgets aimed at economic development, both at the Centre and in the States, at least from the days of Independence, sadly enough, there had been none with focus on rural society.
This is evidently a mistake in planning, and as the present Union Home Minister stated, “wrong development policy has resulted in the present chaotic economic condition pushing the country, almost to the brink of disaster”.
While price stability should remain the hallmark of any stable Government, in our country, both the prices and the Government have been staggering. When we talk of the prices, it should be noted that the prices rise not because of the scarcity of goods but because of the operation of intermediaries, who exploit both the l seller and the buyer. This shows the lack of Government controlled market-mechanisms for the essential commodities, at least. While the recent demonetisation has been a step to curb inflation, its consequences have yet to be felt.
Problems
The other alarming problems are, the high rate of unemployed and under-employed persons, the rural migrants into the cities due to heavy population pressure on the villages, the high rate of illiteracy and the disparities in income and wealth distribution.
Whether the party in power is committed to democracy and socialism, and whether there would be any radical reforms in society—are beyond the immediate concern, leave alone comprehension, of the common man, who is seldom aware of the fact that we have something like a budget or a plan. His urgent needs are for pills against his present poverty and other social miseries. In fact, we have waited for three decades, coolly pocketing the empty promises of our leaders, but this is too long a wait and too long a gestation period for any planning. And in our hitherto planning endeavour, the cream of the benefits has mostly gone to the wealthy few and the poor man has got, if at all, only the crumbs, leaving him again to wallow in the mire of poverty.
The policies and programmes of the Government are shaped by the behaviour of the people at the helm of affairs and their attitude towards the masses who look to them with alms-bowls. The absence of a common code of conduct as it is seen in our country today, may pull the nation in different directions. The Janata Party’s amorphous language policy is a clear case in of this, which obviously overwhelms with the fancies and fanaticism of its members; and the attempts of the present Union Home Minister during his recent visit here [Bangalore], to thrust a strange tongue, Hindi, down the throats of his audience despite their repeated pleas and protests, is a clear example of its language policy. While his attitude may reveal his personal toughness and his excessive enthusiasm or even fanaticism to uphold the language dear to him, as a responsible statesman, he should have tried to uphold the interest of the masses rather than of his own.
Paradox
It is, however, paradoxical that it is the same Minister, who has been meditating, at least manifestly, on the Gandhian ideals. In the recent book India’s Economic Policy… he proposed a Gandhian charter for our economic development and discovered a panacea for all our social ills in earnestly implementing the Gandhian economic concepts. Equally paradoxical is the claim of the Janata Party that it is committed to the Gandhian path, while many of its members, who were all stalwarts of the until recently strong Congress Party, have conveniently swept Gandhism under the carpet. The socialism preached by our aristocratic and ivory tower politicians has much in common with the political satire of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
True to the belief of Mahatma Gandhi, real India still lives in her more than half a million villages, and for an understanding of our social and economic problems, we have to delve deep into these villages as many of our crucial social problems stem from their social and economic inadequacies. But our planners and administrators have remained purblind to this important aspect of planning without giving rural development its due place.
Further, it has to be borne in mind by our planners and administrators that rural India still retains her feudalistic character and many of our politicians and administrators belong to the feudal category. This makes rural-oriented planning all the more difficult, and perfunctory, and legislation and implementation well neigh impossible due to vested interests, and the fear of incurring the wrath of the rural potentates. To overcome this, planning should be really radical and planners should be highly resolute and consistent. A clear example of this can be seen in the snail-paced land reform programmes in many of our States.
Migration
A grievous problem that needs to be tackled soon is the high rate of unemployed and under-employed persons in rural areas, who have no option but to migrate to the distant cities, which look green to them, in search of jobs. The heavy population pressure on villages causes this migration without any means for subsistence and for absorbing the rural population in any gainful employment.
This problem of unemployment and migration is in fact basic to all other rural problems that a solution to it will in turn solve our other problems. The Western or American models of development, however, cannot do this, but only by indigenous means that are suitable to our villages or in short, by the application of Gandhian economic concepts. And as E.F. Schumacher, the “European Gandhian”, in his book, * Small is Beautiful* observed, “The biggest single collective decision that any country in the position of India has to take is the choice of technology”. He clearly drives home the fact that as a developing or a still under-developed country, with traditional unused or under-used skills in abundance, we should be in a position to develop our economy without the help of the much-spoken modern sophisticated technology, which we cannot afford to use amidst our present poverty.
What is needed is an intermediate or appropriate technology that can enable our villagers to use their productive potentials rightly and rationally. This can absorb them in gainful employment in their own villages and solve the problem of both unemployment and migration, which, in the ultimate analysis, give rise to all other social problems. Our forthcoming budget should take care of these important issues to make it more useful and productive to the masses. *]