INDIAN AFFAIRS
Prof. K. V. RAO, M.A.,
M. Litt.
When
‘We, the People of India’, established a Sovereign Democratic Republic, we took
it for granted that we will have or we have had already, all the conditions
necessary for its successful working. One of those essential conditions is that
a democratic country should have a competent set of people having the capacity
and time for thinking on the various problems of democracy that arise from time
to time. If ancient Athens and old England could run their governments well, a
large part of the credit should go to the fact that their economic organisation
then facilitated a large number of people both to acquire the requisite
knowledge as well as to play their proper part in the governance of their
States. The inference is not that we should either go back to the days of
slavery or to feudalism but that we should take note of the point and make the
necessary adjustments in our modern economy, both for the education of the
people and for their leisure. It is in the light of these requirements that we
should watch keenly the socio-economic pattern that we are slowly trying to
evolve in this Welfare State of ours.
There
are various phases of education and various needs, and it is due to a failure
to distinguish between them that sometimes a lot of confusion is created in our
minds. First, there is the question of the education of the masses, as
distinguished from that of the classes, and that in spite of the classless
society we want to create. Then there is the question of university education
along with the question of the medium of instruction. To take the man in the
street, the sovereign citizen of India, first, he requires education in two
senses–education in the ‘affairs’ of the country so that he could take an active
part in it and, above all, he should form the habit of acquiring knowledge and
thinking about it. Secondly he requires the knowledge of a profession whereby
he would be able to earn his livelihood. And both require a good amount of
literacy so that he could continue to acquire knowledge in his later days. This
presupposes another condition of democracy–the availability of cheap and sound
means of knowledge–what we may call ‘literature’ which is available easily to
the adult literate at prices at which he would be induced to acquire. Judged
from this standard, the otherwise admirable and thorough Report of the Press
Commission is very disappointing. While the Commission realised
that an independent Press where ‘opinion is free but facts are sacred’ is a sine
qua non of democracy, they have failed to suggest any effective means of
securing to the ordinary citizen cheap (economically) knowledge through the
daily press and other journals. If I am to recommend, I would at once suggest
the creation of a number of autonomous corporations–the prototype of voluntary
trusts which the Press Commission would like the present proprietors to create
themselves–with Government money, and start cheap language newspapers at
various places in India so that almost every village could get the newspaper
printed in the evening by the next morning. The cost to the Government will be
trifling compared with the vast sums of money we are spending on other
matters, but the result would be tremendous. To avoid misunderstanding, let me
be clear. I want the Centre to create so many
‘Trusts’ with so much money and leave them to themselves as if they are private
trusts. I also want that these trusts should be run on business lines, and all
competition should be avoided by fixing rates as the Press Commission has
suggested. I would make the price less by Government granting a subsidy to all
the papers on the basis of their circulation.
About the education of the classes.
Please do not think that I am creating these ‘classes’; on the other hand, it
is the enthusiasts of Basic Education that are trying to perpetuate or to
create afresh a new ‘sudra’ caste of basic education
and a new ‘brahmin’ class of liberal education–that
is what it amounts to if basic schools are started in all rural areas,
confining the other education to the urban areas. Of course people from the
villages could still go to the towns and get liberal education, but the fact
remains that a large proportion of village children cannot go to the
towns and thus will be consigned to basic education whether they have aptitude
or not. This is not to condemn the ideals of basic education which are high
enough, but to emphasise the need for more careful
thinking than what we have bestowed so far. There is another aspect to it. If
we are teaching a craft, let it be taught in the modern methods of
technological knowledge; otherwise a child learning the ancient craft in the
ancient way will find, when he comes out, that his methods are useless of application,
and will have to learn the same craft again with the help of modern machinery.
This can be done when our schemes of rural electrification are complete.
If
the success of democracy depends upon liberal thinking, then training in
liberal ways of thinking–and that is what liberal education aims at–is
very essential. And we can also recount with pleasure, if not with surprise,
that all democratic countries are having this kind of liberal education. If
that is good for the U.S.A. and England, France and Australia–and we pay them
our best homage by sending our graduates and M.A.’s there for ‘higher’
education, and give them a place of honour when they
return–why should it become unsuitable for India, especially when we have
adopted in India the British ideal of democracy and its mode of government? And
this is the gist of advice to us by expert educationalists like Sir C.P., Sir Mirza and Dr. R.P. Paranjpye
through the various convocation addresses, whose season has just begun. So also
their advice regarding English as the medium of instruction should count with
the authorities–not merely with the Government but with all the future leaders
that are in making today. True it is that the Governments are leaving the
Universities to themselves today, but that is largely due to two factors–both to
the galaxy of Vice-Chancellors that
One of the grounds on which we condemn the present
university education is that it prepares the man for no particular career. But
is that charge correct? Do we not want bank clerks and managers; do we not want
administrators, lawyers and teachers? But the charge is that, because of the attraction,
all want to get liberal education, thus causing unemployment. But the solution
to that problem is neither to change the university education nor to reduce its
later attractions–both will amount to committing suicide to avoid death–but to
choose and pick the students that will go for higher studies, and to make the
attractions in other walks of life equally strong. There are two such
attractions in favour of the ‘educated’–emoluments
and prestige. Slowly the emoluments are moving in favour
of the manual worker. In
The
second question is–how are we to judge if wages in a particular trade are
‘reasonable’ or not? Is it in comparison with what they produce
or with what they get in other industries, or what they get in other countries,
or is there an all-India wage level? So far as we know, there is no uniform
wage level in
For, otherwise, the definite trend
in India is that labour could demand and get more
wages as long as the concern is making profits; and this idea is paving a
peculiar sway under the patterns we are evolving for the management of
industries. The accepted theory is that it is decided by supply and demand and
marginal productivity of labour; but there came first
trade unions that obstructed the operation of the law, and next came the
intervention of the Government, and lastly the Government has itself become
the capitalist, so that today Labour demands, the Government adjudicates and
gives the award; and invariably in favour
of Labour. Why and how the impression has gained ground that an increase in
wages is always at the expense of profits alone, I do not know; but definitely
it is at the expense of the consumer that it is largely taking place in this
country. The example of the Railways will make it clear, especially in view of
the resolution of Parliament this session to review the working of the Railway
Convention. If the Railways will have to make reasonable profits to pay the
General Revenues etc., and if Labour has to get an adequate wage, the only way
to get it is by increasing the fares, and this is exactly what the Government
have been doing for all these years; and the consumer pays. This is the same
story with the postal services, with the textile industry, the Tramways of
Calcutta, and of every other concern; and the process seems to be endless. Thus
is created a peculiar feeling of ‘group interest’, as if each industrial
concern or industry exists only for the material interests of the labour employed.
This
leads us to the general question of company management also. The old Company
Law of India has been under revision by Parliament and naturally the Managing
Agency system has been under criticism, and it has received both
bouquets and brickbats. The question of State management has also come under
consideration, especially since the advent of nationalization in England.
Public corporations should be allowed enough autonomy so that there would not
be the usual red-tapism characteristic of the
Government offices; yet something must be done to make the Directors of the
Corporation feel a sense of responsibility for the decisions they make, as they
do not have the usual risk. The question is, where is that limit to be drawn.
It is true that, as Prof. Robson says (in his ‘Problems of Nationalised
Industries’) “the original impetus to the movement for public corporations came
from a two-fold desire to secure freedom from parliamentary supervision over
management, on the one hand, and treasury control over personnel and finance on
the other”; but it does not mean that so many crores
of the public money should be handed over to nominated directors who have no
stake at all in the concern except their own reputation. The problem requires
some deep consideration, and one expected much from the symposium on the
subject recently held at Rangoon by the ECAFE. Their Report catalogues five
kinds of organisations in vogue; there are organisations managed on the lines of Government departments,
others managed by special boards or committees, some managed as public
corporations, some described as ‘operating contract’ and the last described as
mixed-ownership corporations. Some of these forms of organisation can be seen
in operation in India; but the disappointing part of the Report is its
inevitable conclusion that “it cannot be said that any form of organisation is
best for administration of public enterprises in all countries and in all
circumstances”.
This
conclusion shows how difficult is the nature of the problem; but this problem
does not brook any more delay, especially in view of the tendency towards a
sort of group interest mentioned above, and the recent trend towards changes in
the estimates and other lines of criticism levelled
against some of the public-managed concerns in India. Though there is no cause
for any alarm, and the increase is justified by sound experts, it is worth
while noting the difference between the original estimates and the final ones
so far in the case of some of our big projects; in the case of the D. V. C.,
the 1945 estimate was Rs. 55 crores,
while it is Rs. 96.27 crores
today; in the case of Hirakud the 1947 estimate was Rs. 47.81 crores while today it
is Rs. 92.09 crores; the
1949-50 estimate for Bhakra-Nangal was Rs. 132.9 crores, while today it
stands at about Rs. 170 crores;
and so on. These are certainly great sums and great differences
for a poor country like India, and it is time Parliament devises some effective
means of having a check on them without in any way reducing the efficiency of
the concerns.
Another
off-shoot of the Bank a ward is the resignation of Sri V. V. Giri which raises a few questions for a student of the Constitution. Should a specialist be chosen
always for a particular job in the Cabinet? Is the Labour Minister always to
look after the interests of Labour from inside? The method of appointing
experts was first tried in Madras in 1937 by Rajaji when he appointed Dr. Rajan for Public Health and Sri Giri
for Labour. Later on, the emphasis shifted to regional representation, though
it was hotly refuted by Sri Nehru and Sardar Patel at
the time of the resignation of Dr. Matthai. But we do
give some kind of regional representation as well as communal representation in
the making of all Cabinets, and it is in a way inevitable. But the question of
Labour is different. The appointment of three leaders connected with Labour as
the three successive Labour Ministers since 1947 gives rise to the question
whether Labour shou1d be represented in the Cabinet, and that too by one
connected with Labour. And if a candidate is chosen because he is a leader of
Labour, then it is only inevitable that he should feel an obligation to Labour
and try to safeguard their interests always, lest any repudiation of his
leadership by Labour should strike at the very root of his leadership.
Another
question that arises is whether, when a minister resigns from the Cabinet, he
owes an explanation to the President who has appointed him, to the House to which
he, along with his colleagues, is responsible, and to the nation at large whose
ultimate trustee he is. Here the unwritten Constitution of England may not be
very helpful, but the practice there is usually to explain the reasons in the
Commons–of course, if the outgoing minister so desires. In India since 1947, we
have had six resignations, and out of these. Dr. Matthai,
Dr. Chetty and Dr. Shyamprasad
Mukherjee explained their reasons, and Dr Ambedkar was refused permission, while Sri Neogy and Sri Giri have opted to
keep silent. The silence may be out of regard to party
interests or out of reverence to the great leadership of Sri Nehru, but it is
certainly reasonable that the country should know why exactly they had to lay
down the offices, so that the electors cou1d be educated on the
various aspects of administration and policy. In a new democracy where the habit
of thinking is still to be formed, no opportunity should be
lost of educating the public.
There
are more points for public education, and Pandit Nehru with natural and
legitimate pride exhorted the Indians the other day at the annual gathering of
the A. I. N. E. Conference to look at the all round progress of the
country–this great ‘Adventure in India’. There is really something in this
great achievement on which the Indians should be educated, but equally should
the Indian be educated, said J. R. D. Tata, on some
simple notions that the Indians should shed, a catalogue of which he has given
recently:
“that
the profit motive is dishonourable, that profit is
synonymous with profiteering; that industrialists as a class are inefficient or
dishonest or both; that three per cent net is a fair return on risk capital;
that the population problem will solve itself; that mechanization means
unemployment; that it is more important to impoverish the rich than to enrich
the poor; that a Welfare State can be built without first creating the means
to pay for it; that nationalisation creates
additional wealth; that centralised State enterprize and management is
Socialism.”
Even
if we are not prepared to accept this ‘neat indictment’ of Sri Tata, it is certainly worth our while, especially for the
educated classes of India, to ponder over them to see if there is any truth in
this. But the more important question is whether the intellectual is associated
with this ‘big adventure’ at all. “The Indian intellectual needs to throw
himself into the Indian adventure,” says the ‘Eastern Economist’, and notes
that “at the present time, he is still an onlooker.” But why this apathy? The
powers that be should investigate.
Is
even the villager associated completely? Pandit Nehru asks us to catch the glow
that has been lit in the villages. It is true that there is a new enthusiasm in
the country, a new spirit and a new outlook, but our point is that it is not
yet up to the maximum desirable or practicable. That is largely because it has
been one of the old complaints, that the people have not been associated with
the Plan. This drawback–if there was one–will be rectified, we are told, in the
case of the Second Five Year Plan under preparation. If we want the people to
catch the new slogan ‘Haram harm hai’
(complacency or a feeling of restfulness is harmful), the people must be
educated to know not only how it is harmful, but also what exact part one has
to play in this Great Adventure. There are thousands of people in India who do
not know, though they are really very anxious; what exactly each has to do ‘to
do his bit’. The Second Five Year Plan has to give minute instructions and
plans to meet this particular demand, especially of the educated classes.
While
this is all true, one great cloud that obstructed our horizon is being slowly
removed–the uncertainty of our economic policies; and this feeling of stability
we get when we go through the resolutions passed at the Ajmer session of the A. I. C. C. and read the firm speeches
made by the majority of the leaders. The private sector therefore can go on now
with their plans for the future, assured of this new climate of industrial and
economic policy. We are now sure of our basic objective of economic policy
which is “maximum production, full employment, and social and economic
justice”, and it is for all concerned to shape their outlook and activity accordingly.
On the question of nationalization the Prime Minister was emphatic: “When
resources were limited should they be used for putting up new industries or to
acquire old ones? If they were utilised for new
industries, the State-owned sector became bigger and bigger and more competent.
If an old industry was acquired, the State got old and outworn machinery. It
was far better to have additional production from a new State-owned factory. If
an old factory was acquired, the production remains the same.” This note is
certainly encouraging for the future.