BY M. VENKATARANGAIYA, M. A.

I

In these critical times through which we are passing, it is necessary that we should have some clear ideas as to the test that will have to be applied to judge the quality of the achievements of the Congress Ministries that are now functioning in six of our Provinces. The Congress in its election manifesto and the Working Committee in the resolutions it passed from time to time, and especially in March last during the discussions on the issue of office acceptance, placed a definite programme before these Ministries and it will be just and reasonable to test their work by the amount and extent of success they obtain in carrying out that programme. The Ministries have been formed for a particular purpose and every estimate of the results of their Government should be based on the degree to which that purpose is fulfilled by them.

The programme of the Congress may be divided roughly into two parts–the political and the administrative. Of the two, the political should be regarded as the more fundamental. For the last seventeen years the Congress has been engaged in a great struggle for the attamment of Swaraj or complete national Independence. The Satyagraha movement brought us several paces nearer this goal but the goal is still very distant. The suspension of the non-violent non-co-operation is not a suspension of the struggle itself. It has only meant the adoption of a different strategy and a new set of tactics for the purpose. And it is as an element in this new strategy that the Congress decided on acceptance of office and the formation of Ministries in the Provinces. This is the central point in the resolution passed by the Working Committee in March last on this subject. It was there pointed out quite emphatically that the Congress entered these elections with its objective of Independence and its total rejection of the new Constitution and with the demand for a Constituent Assembly to frame India’s Constitution. The declared Congress policy was to combat the new Act and end it…..The people have further declared that they desire to frame their own Constitution based on national Independence through the medium of a Constituent Assembly elected by adult franchise." It proceeded further to state that it desires to impress upon all Congress members of the Legislatures that their work inside and outside the Legislatures must be based on the fundamental Congress policy of "combating the new Constitution and seeking to end it."

This implies that the Congress Governments in the Provinces expect that the struggle for Swaraj will have to be renewed on a very intensive scale in the near future, and that when the time comes for it the Congress should be in a better position to face British Imperialism. The renewed struggle must be a struggle to the finish. It can assume such a character provided that in the meanwhile there is such a large increase in the strength of the Congress that it will become an irresistible force, breaking down all opposition and leading the country to a triumphant victory. The only question that we therefore have to put to ourselves is: "Can the Congress Ministries do much to achieve this aim and bring, through their efforts, that strength and solidity to the national organisation which will make it invincible in the next stage of the struggle for Independence?" There are many circumstances which make one feel confident that from this–the political point of view the Ministries will be a success.

Even before the last elections the attitude of the masses towards the Congress was one of implicit faith in its ideals and of intense devotion to the cause for which it stands. The formation of Congress Ministries has strengthened this faith and devotion. The masses now find in the citadels of authority persons who till yesterday were regarded as revolutionaries and seditionists fit to be kept indefinitely in prison. This has produced a great psychological change. The measures which the Congress Ministries have already taken or propose to take in respect of the release of political prisoners, the removal of restrictive orders and bans, the restoration of properties and buildings to those who were deprived of their ownership in the days of non-co-operation, the reinstatement of village officers who were dismissed for political reasons, the return of security deposits taken from the owners of printing presses and newspapers–these have already produced a dramatic and spectacular effect. They have added to the influence and the prestige of the Congress. Men who were cursing it in the past are now praying for its success. And everywhere the general enthusiasm for the Congress is on the Increase.

But enthusiasm is like a bubble unless it is properly organised. And in this respect also the position is bound to improve under the auspices of the Congress Ministries. In the past one serious difficulty that the Congress experienced was due to its having been considered a sort of unlawful association engaged in subversive activities. Many were afraid of becoming members in it. Sedition was easily discovered in the speeches made by its prominent members and leaders. To sympathise with its ideals was considered a crime and those who did so were suspected, and subjected to bitter persecution. But now things are changed. If only organised steps are taken by the active Congressmen it will be very easy to increase the number of members and bring the message of the Congress to millions of people. The Congress Ministries are in a position to do this.

For, it is a matter of common observation that there is a good deal of what may be called a discretionary element in the enforcement of law in every country. Laws are always administered by men; and ideas of right and wrong influencing the decisions of men change with changes in environment. In many cases the law leaves it to the discretion of the executive authority whether action should be taken against those who are suspected of having committed a breach of it. Whether any association should be declared unlawful, whether prosecution should be launched against a person for delivering a seditious speech, whether restrictions should be placed on the activities of a particular newspaper, whether particular persons should be bound over in the interests of peace and order–questions like these are always settled by the Executive, not on the basis of abstract theory or of strict adherence to the letter of the law, but on considerations of expediency. During the last few years this discretionary power of the Executive was used against the Congress. But now that the Congress itself has become the executive authority in several Provinces, there is every guarantee that the discretion vested in it will not only not be used against the Congress organisations but will be used in furtherance of their activities. Congressmen will be free to carryon their propaganda, organise committees, enroll more members and carry on more systematic work without being hampered by the unwanted attention of the preservers of peace and order. There is also the possibility of the Ministries using their discretion in suppressing the harmful activities of organisations that promote communal strife and class hatred and create a split in the ranks of the nation. Under circumstances like these the Congress will become the one dominating organisation in the country, and there will be a considerable weakening of the reactionary and sectional elements.

It is from this standpoint that the proposal to pay salaries to the members of the Legislature is to be welcomed. It will place at the disposal of the Congress Ministries the services of a band of tried and experienced workers prepared to devote all their time to strengthen the hold of the Congress over the masses. They will go constantly on tour in their constituencies, keep the electorate informed of the national policy and answer all criticisms that may be leveled against it.

The new Ministries will be doing the right thing in furtherance of their political programme if they introduced adult suffrage in respect of elections to local bodies. The establishment of Panchayats in all villages with a population of five hundred and more will serve a similar purpose. The strength of the Congress depends ultimately on the support it is able to secure from the masses as distinguished from the classes. The extension of franchise and the capture of all local bodies by the Congress will increase its power and influence and help it in securing the final victory in the national struggle.

Critics may question the legitimacy of the Ministries using their power to strengthen the cause of their party. There is only one answer to this. The cause for which they are fighting is not the cause of a party or section. It is the cause of the whole country and of the nation. They were returned to power in an election fought on this issue and it is only proper to give effect to the mandate of the people. They will not be justified in sticking on to their offices if they are not in a position to carry out positive measures in furtherance of the Congress objective.

II

One cannot be equally sanguine about the prospects of the Congress Ministries carrying out the administrative programme placed before them, or even about the desirability of carrying it out completely at this stage. Here, questions of justice, humanity and equity crop up in large numbers. The economic and the social programme of the Congress affects different classes and sections of the community in different ways. Legislation and administrative action taken by the Ministries in this sphere will be looked at with considerable suspicion and misgivings by some, while they may not give complete satisfaction to the rest. It is here that caution and prudence ought to guide the Ministries. Nothing should be done in haste, even though certain promises were made during the elections and commitments entered into.

Such caution is necessary in view of certain disabilities from which the Ministries are suffering. In the first place there is the possibility that the Congress may go out of office at any time. Unforeseen events may occur necessitating the dismissal or the resignation of the present Ministries. The period of the tenure of office may not be sufficiently long to enable them to carry out their programme on a systematic basis, to watch any of the harmful consequences of the measures they adopt, and undertake the steps required to remedy them. Unstable Ministries have been found in most democracies to be a very serious obstacle in the way of real reform. Continuity is broken and the good work done by one Cabinet is undone by its successor. The Congress Ministries are at present in this predicament. They may remain in power perhaps for three years or four, and the question will naturally arise whether it is just and equitable for them to start legislation for the completion of which a long period tenure of ten or fifteen years is necessary. In the second place, Congress Governments are in power only over Provinces. The bureaucracy is still paramount at the Centre. Unless there is proper co-ordination between the policies adopted in the Provinces and those adopted at the Centre, the results of isolated action taken by Provincial Governments may prove injurious to several classes of people in the community. In such cases prudence dictates that the Ministries should wait until they are able to get the co-operation of the Central Government to the extent they need. Otherwise, the criticism of Congress policy and Congress measures may become acute and strengthen the reactionary forces around us. Considerations like these were uppermost in the minds of those Congressmen who were opposed to the acceptance of office under the limitations imposed by the Government of India Act.

Taken as a whole, the economic programme of the Congress is sound. Each item in it is complementary to the others. And this means that if there is time to take action only in respect of a few of these items, the organic unity of the programme will be broken, and undeserved suffering and misery will result. There is, for instance, a close inter-connection between the reduction of land tax by 25 % and the adoption of prohibition on one side, and the raising of new taxes like death duties, a tobacco tax and a tax on higher agricultural incomes on the other; and both these are intimately related to the development of nation-building activities like the spread of universal education and the promotion of public health and the establishment of cottage industries. The first of these cannot be accomplished unless the second also is taken up simultaneously on hand. While it does not require much time to reduce the land tax, it takes a fairly long time to investigate into the possibilities of new taxes–their yield and their equity. No Ministry therefore will be justified in giving immediate relief to the peasants by reducing land taxes. This will have to wait until the Government is ready with its new schemes of taxation or retrenchment. It should be the duty of the Congress leaders to prevent the peasants from growing disappointed on this score. This fact has already been realised, as no Ministry found it possible to reduce land tax by 25 % although this was accepted as the first item in the immediate economic programme of the Congress on its assumption of office.

It is unfortunate that questions of public economy continue to be approached from a standpoint which might have been valid in the days of bureaucracy, but which has become invalid now that a democratic body is in office. Taxation is naturally felt irksome under a bureaucracy as its proceeds are spent on war, on high salaries and on undertakings which do not yield an adequate return to the tax-payers. In a democracy conditions are different. Taxes collected by a democratic government only strengthen its power and capacity to do good to the people at large and increase their material and moral welfare. Even with regard to the reduction of land tax by 25% it may be stated that the addition made to the income of the peasant by this is very insignificant, in view of the fact that most of the holdings in our country are small in size. The retention of this 25% by the Congress Government will enable it to promote schemes of rural uplift which will substantially add to the comfort and the happiness of the villagers. There are circumstances under which the expenditure of a given amount of money by Government yields better results than its expenditure in small driblets by numerous individuals. We have to cultivate a new attitude towards taxation in the years to come.

Emphasizing the need for a reduction of taxes is not so good in the long run as putting emphasis on the need for increasing the national dividend. It is no doubt true that there should be a re-adjustment of the tax burden. But relief to the agriculturist and the workers can come only with an increase in their productive capacity and in the yield from land and industries. Such an increase will bring an automatic and a real relief from the burden of taxation. In the agrarian programme of the Congress is a significant item, viz., co-operative farming. Giving effect to this is much more urgent and much more useful in the long run than the other remedies proposed for bettering the lot of the peasantry. In most parts of our country it is the small size of the holding which is the greatest obstacle in the way of an increase of agricultural income. It is responsible for the low credit that the peasant commands in the money market, the high rate of interest he has to pay, his inability to use better implements, better cattle and better manure. The sooner large-scale farming on a co-operative basis is introduced, the better it will be. The exemption of all uneconomical holdings from taxation may be required for immediate relief, but the more permanent and rational course will be to bring about the disappearanc of such holdings through systematic consolidation.

The object in drawing attention to matters like these is not to point out the defects in the Congress programme but to make clear the difficulties which Ministries have to face in carrying it out. It is easy to enunciate policies but difficult to execute them. These things have to be borne in mind when Ministries are blamed for not being able to fulfill all the expectations roused in the minds of the public during the election campaign.

It is not merely difficulties like these but also difficulties due to our varying conceptions of social justice that will prevent the Ministries from giving full effect to the Congress programme. The drive behind the new economic and social movement in our country is the feeling that we should respect in each individual the humanity in him and not his birth, the caste to which he belongs and the class with which he is economically associated. Each individual has a right to have his basic needs satisfied, whether in the conventional language he is called a Harijan, a peasant, or a coolie. Unfortunately, however, in the policies we enunciate we forget all this and bring along with us the traditional class mentality. We look at individuals from the point of view of this or that class to which they belong–perhaps taking refuge behind the view that it is the ‘economic’ class we have now in mind and not the accursed caste. To take one example. There is a persistent demand to give relief in respect of agricultural indebtedness. The assumption here is that the peasantry as a class are specially suffering from the burden of debt, and as it is heavier in their case than in the case of others they deserve immediate consideration. But there is the indebtedness of the landless workers, of the industrial workers, of domestic servants, of servants in public offices and of several other sections among the poor people who are as deserving of immediate relief as the peasants themselves. Such people may not be so numerous as the peasants. But in our attempts to relieve suffering the question of majorities and minorities ought not to enter. The suffering and misery of one individual–call him by whatever name you like–are as worthy of consideration as those of any other. The legislation therefore that Ministries should undertake must be of a comprehensive character and must do good to all individuals placed in a similar situation, irrespective of the labels attached to them by social convention. A poor caste-Hindu is as much deserving of relief as a poor Harijan, so long as poverty is the criterion of relief.

Questions like these assume importance when dealing with measures against the so-called ‘parasitical’ classes in the country. Parasitism is a curse and it must be removed at all costs. These classes live on the labour of others and not on their own, and their wants are so numerous that the labour of several tens and hundreds of people is necessary before those wants are satisfied. The Zamindars, the money-lenders and several others are included in this category. When measures of legislation for expropriating such classes are undertaken, we are apt to forget that there is I some humanity in the members of these classes and they are not merely parasites. Justice requires that some compensation be given to them when Zamindaris are abolished. The suffering felt by them when they are reduced to poverty is as great as the suffer- ing of the rest of the poorer classes. There is also the case of those that have been in the service of these Zamindars–hundreds and thousands of people–who were maintaining themselves from the salaries they got in such service. They might have been tools in the hands of their masters, employed to oppress the tenantry and fleece them in the collection of taxes and rents. But they are as much the victims of the Zamindari system as the tenants themselves. Let it not be forgotten that measures abolishing the Zamindari system should, if humanitarian considerations are to prevail, be accompanied by measures of relief to these unfortunate people.

There is a large amount of truth in the contention put forward by the toddy-tappers of Salem district, where prohibition is going to be shortly introduced, that the effects of this policy would be to bring starvation to nearly twenty-five thousand families. The suffering of the starving toddy-tapper and his wife and children are as real as that of the poor labourer’s wife and children who are put to starvation owing to the labourer spending his money on drink; and they deserve as much relief as the members of the labourer’s family. Before a policy of prohibition is given effect to, it is not unjust to expect from the Government some scheme for providing toddy-tappers with employment. We are apt to condemn machinery on the ground that its introduction leads to the unemployment of labour and that it takes a long time for industry to absorb the labour thus thrown out of employment. In terms of human suffering, it does not matter much whether unemployment is caused by governmental legislation or by the avarice of the capitalist. This is why the Congress high command is intending to proceed slowly and cautiously in the matter of prohibition. Here again people should not feel disappointed when the promises made by the party are not fulfilled immediately.

III

In the examples given above, caution is necessitated not because the Ministries have no desire to carry out the programme but because time is required to investigate the full implications of the measures proposed to be undertaken, so that unnecessary suffering may not be brought on any section of the people and equity is observed in dealing with all. But there are also many other items in the Congress programme where the complicating factor is not ‘time’ but the absence of power. Here again there is no use in being over-critical about the achievements of Ministries.

The problem of middle-class unemployment falls to some extent into this category. The number of such unemployed is large. They are suffering from starvation and from all the misery due to even the barest physical needs not being satisfied. They are willing to work but are unable to find work. They can get relief if more schools are opened, if more hospitals and dispensaries are organised, and if a systematic programme of public works is undertaken by the State. In terms of suffering, their lot is much worse than that of the peasant who has some land to cultivate and some habitation to shelter him. If those who are underfed have a claim on the State, those who are starving have a greater claim. But it is not possible for the Provincial Ministries by themselves to provide these classes with employment. The type of occupations which give employment to such men in other countries are not open to them in our country at present. The army, the shipping industry, the railways, the Political and Diplomatic Services and other departments under the control of the Central Government can absorb large numbers of the unemployed. But we have to wait till the Congress is able to capture power at the Centre. Meanwhile the Provincial Ministries can attempt at only partial relief.

This is also the case in regard to the finances required for the nation-building departments. The scope for retrenchment in provincial expenditure is limited, while in the departments controlled by the Centre the scope appears to be wider. If the Central authority is prepared to reduce its military expenditure by 50% and stop recruiting of outsiders for the all-India Services like the I.C.S., I..M.S., etc., and reduce the scale of salaries for members of these services, immense savings may be effected. If these savings are distributed among the Provinces, they will be in a position to expand and work out effectively all their schemes of education, public health, rural uplift, etc. Such a thing cannot happen so long as the Congress is not able to capture the Central Government.

All this should not be interpreted as a failure of the Congress to carry out its administrative programme. On the other hand it is to be welcomed as a measure of caution and prudence which, at a later stage when circumstances are more favourable, will enable the Congress to execute its policy in full. A ton of wisdom is embodied in the following words of the Hon. Mr. A. B. Lathe, the Finance Minister of Bombay, spoken when he presented his first Budget: "In the pursuit of these methods we avoid fire-works, and are content to be cautious, patient, even conservative."

In conclusion it may be remarked that we have to judge about the achievements of the Congress Ministries, not by the extent to which they will be able to carry out their administrative and economic programme but by the success they are able to obtain in pushing their political programme through. It is only after Swaraj is won that it will be possible for any Ministry to completely overhaul the economic system of the country. Meanwhile all their efforts should be directed to that one purpose, and everything else should be regarded as subsidiary. The critics of the Congress Ministries should never forget this truth.

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