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 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 ofmoney 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 ofthe 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 ofapplication, and will have to learn the same craft again with the help of modern machinery. This can be done when our schemes ofrural electrification are complete.

If the success of democracy depends upon liberal thinking, then training in liberal ways ofthinking–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 India has today as well as to the good sense of the powers that be that has the tradition of listening to the advice of the expert. But these conditions cannot be guaranteed to last forever; and the impression is gaining ground that ‘reform’ of university education is essential, but it is temporarily postponed due to the wishes of the experts now. It is now the proper time, when the old experts are still alive and the powers that be are reasonable, that the nature and extent of these ‘reforms’ be settled, so that such an essential and sacred thing like education will not fall into the hands of those that cannot make a distinction between personal fads and correct policies.

THE BANK AWARD

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 England, for instance, a recent survey reveals that a manual worker gets about £ 10 a week as against £ 9 obtained by a clerk. Even in India, a skilled worker gets more than a school-teacher, and a university lecturer gets less than a bank manager, of even a third-rate office. But the prestige is there which is responsible for the Muses not going on hunger strike. One may ask: ‘Are the bank staff to be tallied with manual workers?’ But that is what has been done by the Bank Award, the subsequent story of which raises a number of incidental questions. Number one is–is banking an industry? If so, why not consider teaching also as an industry and give the teachers the rights–very enviable rights–of the Trade Unions?

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 India; and the other day Sir Sri Ram was calculating the percentage of wages got by the Indian worker compared with the per capita income, and he came to the conclusion that the Indian worker gets the highest percentage in the world! (The figures for the U. S. A., U. K., Japan, and India being respectively 190, 145, 263 and 419). In an article on ‘The Race: Profits and Wages’ the ‘Eastern Economist’ has shown that in the race between profits and wages in real terms, it is the employed and not the employer who are winning”. But at the same time, the report of the Reserve Bank on Company Finance clearly shows that the level of profit of the capitalists is quite reasonable and sound. All this points out that while the capitalist and the labourer are both making ‘adequate’ earnings at a ‘racing speed’, the wage earner is gaining more between them. But who is paying them both? Somebody is paying and that somebody is the poor consumer! And this is accentuating because of a peculiar attitude the Indian public takes towards what constitutes a ‘reasonable wage’ in any industry. It is not to be compared with what the Indian in general gets, but what the best among the workers gets in any industry, or according to the amount of profits which each industry is making–though in this particular banking ‘industry’ it has been shown that if the Award was implemented as it was, at an average of Rs. 50,000 cost per branch, many banks would have to close down. Similarly the Press Commission have pleaded for higher wages for the journalists–journalists are also ‘workers’ in the newspaper industry–and the other day Sir C. P. Ramaswami Aiyar said in Ahmedabad that he would not be worried if consequently a few newspaper concerns are closed down. The point here is not that labour is not entitled to a higher wage or ‘reasonable’ wage; but that we should have a clear policy on what constitutes that ‘reasonable level’.

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.

COMPANY MANAGEMENT

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.

CABINET-MAKING

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.

‘THE ADVENTURE IN INDIA’

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 draw–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.