Book review: Economic Nightmare of India - Its Cause and Cure by Charan Singh

Economic Nightmare of India - Its Cause and CureBy Charan SinghPublished by National Publishing HousePrice: Rs 175; Pages: 564 What came first, the egg or the chicken? The chicken-and-egg syndrome extends all the way to the heady and apparently perennial debate on economic growth: what should come first, agriculture or industry?Men like Charan Singh, who have-been neither to the London School of Economics nor broken bread with the Fabians, have been arguing for years that Nehru committed a Himalayan blunder by putting industry before agriculture, thereby reversing the "natural' order of development. The Nehruites of course, maintain that there is no such thing as natural order and there was in any case nothing radically wrong with Nehru's plans. What was defective, if at all, was their implementation.Charan Singh has come out with yet another salvo against the Nehruites, although the years in power seem to have mellowed him. His thesis is starkly simple: go back to Gandhi and make the village a focal point for all planning. This will not only provide employment to every able-bodied man in the country but relieve the pressure on cities and make the country really self-reliant. The primary purpose of planning, says Charan Singh, is not production but employment, and the gross national product comes before the people and not the other way round. Since over 70 per cent of the labour force is employed in agriculture, the problem of employment has to begin there, with such minimal support from industry as may be called for, but no more than minimal.Rural India: Charan Singh's is not everybody's India - it is essentially rural India and anything that is not rural is alien to him. The book might as well be called "Economic Nightmare of Village India" for that is what it is. His allergy to modern India peeps through many a sly reference to industry about which he seems to know as little as a hill-billy might about atomic energy. Singh: An allergy to modernisationHe says at one point: "We have over 6,000 foreign technical collaboration agreements but we have yet to hear of any technical breakthrough achieved in the use of indigenous raw materials." This is patently untrue-Indian imports of raw materials for industry are less than 1 per cent of its GNP - and also unfair to our engineers who have learnt to make high explosives from jute stalks and paper from bagasse, with very little help from outside.The trouble with Charan Singh and company is that they cannot distinguish between economic growth and development. Development is not just a matter of economic growth. Rather, one can only regard as development those processes of change in which the dynamism of economic growth is harnessed to transcendent social purpose - to the progressive rescue of masses of people from degrading poverty and to a more egalitarian distribution of the benefits of growth. The operative word is change, and the main function of planning is not allocation of resources but the organisation of the process of change. This organisation has to take place on a national scale, not confined to just this or that sector.Charan Singh cites American agriculture as a success story which, of course, it is, but not for the reasons he thinks it is. US agriculture is a highly organised industry, nearly as organised and productive as manufacturing, with a level of managerial and technological inputs that is also on par with that of the latter. Both run in tandem, one drawing upon and supporting the other, and free from the adversary relationship in which they seem to be operating in India.Reactionary: Charan Singh comes over in his book as a highly conservative, if not reactionary, person, afraid of if not opposed to, the "processes of change", without which almost by definition, no worthwhile development is possible. He seems to be opposed to almost anything that is an important factor in modernization - new technology, foreign investment and multinationals, capital-intensive industry, big business and computers. One suspects that he is opposed to industrialisation not because it is uneconomic but because, like all conservatives, he is wary of change itself.Change, like growth, is not always beneficial but no society can resist change and yet progress towards modernization. The genius of the political leadership lies in harnessing the process of change for common welfare - not stopping it in its tracks. At least one reason for the collapse of the Janata Party was the impression created by some of its leaders like Morarji Desai and Charan Singh that they were confirmed conservatives who would like to take the country back to pre-East India Company days. And, Gandhi or no Gandhi, it is doubtful whether any Indian really wants to go back to those days.Popular Myth: The oft-trotted argument that the heavy industry accent in Indian planning is responsible for the current misery of the Indian people is a myth. According to his own figures, the number of rural people below the so-called poverty line came down sharply from 65 per cent in 1956-57 to 51 per cent in 1967-68, a drop not to be sneezed at. Is there any evidence that the picture would have been much better without industrial growth?Charan Singh gleefully cites the example of China as a success story, but despite their different paths of growth, is there much difference between India and China? India has just negotiated a huge loan with the IMF and China is about to follow suit. China is also about to import foodgrains from the US, as we ourselves did earlier in the year. China is inviting foreign capital and technology on a massive scale in such key sectors as oil, transport and communications, and so is India, but on a smaller scale. And according to a recent study, the general pattern of income distribution in China - or for that matter, the USSR - is not all that different from that in welfare state capitalist democracies. If China is a success story - which would be news to the Chinese - so is India. Indian agriculture is often cited as a success story abroad, as President Reagan recently did at Cancun.The industry vs agriculture argument is essentially phoney, as are most other 'versus' arguments such as large vs small, urban vs rural. Actually there is no dichotomy between the two, only a difference in levels. Agriculture should be more of a business than a slow leisurely vocation that it has been for centuries. Where it has ceased to be a vocation and is run on business lines - good agriculture is as capital-intensive as manufacturing - it has been a tremendous success. One suspects that Charan Singh does not like businessmen, large and small, without realising that even politics is big business nowadays. So why should only farming be otherwise?Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 22, 2013 14:57 IST--- ENDS ---

Download App

Get 37% off on an annual Print +Digital subscription of India Today Magazine

Book review: Economic Nightmare of India - Its Cause and Cure by Charan Singh

Men like Charan Singh, who have-been neither to the London School of Economics nor broken bread with the Fabians, have been arguing for years that Nehru committed a Himalayan blunder by putting industry before agriculture, thereby reversing the "natural' order of development.

PUBLICATIONS

TELEVISION

EVENTS

RADIO

GAMING

USEFUL LINKS

PRINTING

WELFARE

DISTRIBUTION

SYNDICATIONS

WEBSITES

EDUCATION