Economic Rebirth of India

For a thousand years from the beginning of the Christian era, India was creative both in mind and in matter. The source of the creative faculty is spirit which expresses itself in matter, mind and life which is their compound. When we speak of the rebirth of India today, it is not the matter of India or the mind of India that is reborn but the spirit of India. The highest expression of spirit in life is man. Indian civilization was rich not only in culture of mind and spirit but also in material development. It was the material riches of India, cloth, silk, precious metals and stones and spices, that attracted European traders to India. The value of the culture of India was recognized later by Europe. The spirit of India was active when India sent Buddhist missionaries to Central Asia and the Far East, and sent colonisers to South-East Asia where they established kingdoms in Indo-China, Siam and Burma, and Malaya, Java and Sumatra. These kingdoms were established and maintained in a peaceful and righteous manner so that even today the memories of Indian rule a thousand years ago are treasured with goodwill and maintained in something of the ways of old established Indian culture. It is said in Siam that after say, 1000 A. D., Indians withdrew their movement into South-East Asia as they had to defend themselves against Moslem incursions.

The British introduced a culture which had affinities with India, and corrected its defects. India is the only Aryan outpost in Asia. The mother language of India, Sanskrit, comes of the same root-stock as most of the European languages. Words are the outer expressions of inner ideas.

There was one main direction in which Britain furnished a corrective to India. This was in regard to the value and significance of matter. The Indian idea of spirit was that it was “the inner base of all that exists,” in the words of Prime Minister Nehru. Spirit, therefore, may express itself in matter, mind or man. But India tended to regard matter as maya, a level of expression which was inferior to mind and spirit. This was opposed to the original vision of India. Spirit is not matter, but spirit is also matter. The law of logic called the law of exclusion of the middle, viz., A is either B or not B, is true only of finite existence, but not of its base which is not less real. The rich material civilization of India fell into neglect, and men had to be content with the social organization that had built up but had discarded the rich material life which was replaced by an asceticism which was sometimes an excuse for laziness and neglect.

When India became free, it heralded a new creative era for its spirit. With freedom won under the great leadership of Gandhiji, and maintained by that of Pandit Nehru, a new era of social and economic development, of material, mental and vital growth, has come into being. The development of science, economics and politics in free India has, while it has much in common with the development of the West, also aspects which bid fair to be different from and helpful to the West. Matter is real even as mind and spirit. But its reality has to be in unison with the reality of mind and spirit. The West is passing through the age of Physics where the primary reality is matter. The development of science has led the world to the atomic age, the age of the many atoms between which there is clash and violence. The genius of India is one of synthesis no less than analysis. It is the function of India to build on the atomic age with all its rich flowering of material atoms a cosmic age in which the many atoms, and the energy contained in them, are rebuilt into a unity which is the vehicle not of war but of peace. The task of India today is how to build the body of India while maintaining and developing its mind and spirit.

The source of energy is spirit. This may express itself either through material atoms or the organizing mind or the unifying spirit. Mind is an affirmation of spirit, and is a way of energy-manifestation which is nearer to the genius of spirit. If man would save his soul, he should recognize the reality of mind at the same time as of matter. The West has done humanity’s task of developing matter. India has to be abreast of the West in material development, and has further to develop mind and spirit.

Pandit Nehru has shown an awareness of the need for a reborn India to develop in all the three directions of matter, mind and spirit. He is no less true to the demands of the scientific age than the scientists of Europe. He maintains the vision of Vedanta that spirit is “the inner base of all that exists.” But equally he is the author of the planning and development of India, which has received its impetus from him and which is maintained by him more than by any other leader of India. The economic rebirth of India is the rebirth of the spirit of India at the material level. How is spirit reborn in matter?

Spirit is swayambhu. Being reborn of itself, it draws together mind and matter, perhaps by a form of induction. The spirit of India is reborn in her leaders–like Gandhiji and Nehruji. The potential energy of India in the shape of mind as well as matter is then made mobile in a further layer of leaders. The kinetic mind and matter of these leaders then draws out the material energy as well as the ideas of the mass of men in the shape of concrete and hard work. There are thus the self-birth of the spirit of India in the top leaders of men, the birth of spirit at the intellectual level in the next group of leaders, and the birth of spirit at the material level in the mass of men. Everywhere, it is spirit that is born at the level of man, mind and matter. A nation is a pyramid of matter, mind and man. For the rebirth of a nation, we need first one or two top leaders, then a layer of lieutenant leaders, and then a layer of workers. How does this work in India?

India has produced a few supreme leaders in the last half a century who have developed a fresh power of spirit. It has next produced men who can apply the potential power created in the top leaders to the planning of development. This is next worked out in material and other development by men who are in tune with the new power and work hard to apply it. The base on which they work is the material resources of India–its land and water, its minerals, plants and animals, besides the developed human resources in mind and spirit.

A programme for the development of these resources has been designed by the National Planning Commission headed by statesmen and administrators. The programme for the Central Government is drawn up by Central Ministries in respect of Irrigation and Power, Railways, Steel and Iron, Commerce and Industry, Agriculture, Education and Health. The programme for the States is divided into six principal heads as follows:

i.                     Agriculture and allied subjects including agricultural production, irrigation, land development, animal husbandry, forests, marketing, co-operation and fisheries;
ii.                   Community development and national extension service;
iii.                  Irrigation and power
iv.                 Industry and mining–large, medium, and small technological industry, village and cottage industries and mineral development;
v.                   Transport and communications;
vi.                 Social services including education, health, housing, ward classes, social welfare and labour.

The plan for the States is prepared by State Governments in consultation with villagers and local leaders and officials. It is examined and approved by the Planning Commission first for a 5 year period and then split up into annual plans discussed and approved each year. The following figures give the amount provided in the First 5 Year Plan and the Second 5 Year Plan for the whole Union and for the States alone.

(in crores)
I Plan                                                                           II Plan

Total provision              Amount spent               Total provision             Amount anticipated to be spent

Union               2378                        2013                             4800                               4500
States only        988                          898                               2241                               2048

The percentage provision under the main heads is given below:

I Plan               II Plan

%                     %
i. Agriculture and allied-subjects                                    11.3                   7.7
ii. Community development and national
extension service                                                 3.8                   4.1
iii. Irrigation and power                                                 28.1                  19.0
iv. Industry and mining                                                    7.6                  18.5
v. Transport and communications                                  23.6                  28.9
vi. Social services                                                         22.l.                  17.7
vii. Miscellaneous                                                            3.0                    2.1

100.0               100.0

It will be noticed that in the I Plan, the expenditure on agriculture, rural development and irrigation and power comes to 43 per cent, while in the II Planit comes to 31 per cent. Industry with transport and communications rises from 31 per cent to 47 per cent. The core of the II Plan is industrial. It is, however, being felt that the foundation of the Planmust be agricultural and increasing attention is being turned to agricultural production.

A visit to the “India 1958” exhibition in Delhi is instructive in showing the marked improvements in production, construction and techniques achieved by the Plans. The large scale irrigation and power schemes are well presented in the Irrigation and Power pavilion. The projects of Bhakra-Nangal, Damodar Valley, Hirakud, Nagarjunasagar, Chambal, Tapti, Kundah, Sheravati and Rihand have come into being as a result of the Planning. Tungabhadra reservoirs are pre-plan projects continued under the Plans. Projects on the Godavary–Ramapadasagar, Ichampalli and Pochampadu–are to come under future plans. The increased production of steel and iron has become a major part of the II plan. The raising of the production of cereals per acre is a matter for special concern and attention. The average production of paddy per acre in India is 1200 lbs, in China 2400 lbs, in Japan 3700 lbs, in Indonesia 2000 lbs, in U. S. A. 3000 lbs and U. S. S. R. 2000 lbs. Even a 50 per cent increase in paddy production per acre in India will revolutionize the economy of India and raise its political status among the nations. The average yield of wheat is 640 lbs in India, 770 lbs in China and 1870 lbs in Japan. Special attention is being paid to the use of local and chemical fertilisers, provision of improved seed and techniques of cultivation besides the provision of more irrigation. The irrigated area in India has risen from 51 million acres at the beginning of the I Plan to 62 million acres at the end and is expected to rise to 78 million acres by the end of the II plan Power rises from 1.7 million K. Ws to 2.7 million and 5.3 million in the same periods. There is no reason except it be the lack of a will to do things that stands in the way of India attaining a 50 per cent increase in cereal production in the course of a few years. Special mention may also be made of a project of large scale land utilization in an area in Central India to which I have given the name of Dandakaranya as it is associated with the epic wanderings of Rama, Sita and Lakshmana. The first phase of the project deals with an area of 30,000 square miles which will rise later to 80,000 square miles. It will provide living space as well as increased wealth.

Industry is being developed at all levels–major, medium, small and cottage. India has now a list of some thirty main industries under production including steel, aluminium, machine tools, cement, sugar, textiles, paper, engines, automobiles, ships, aeroplanes, tractors, fertilisers, chemicals, petroleum refinery, electrical transformers, heavy electrical goods, bicycles and sewing machines. Some twenty years ago when I visited the Planning Commission in Russia, and was asked to mention the principal industries in India, I could only mention cotton, jute, steel, leather and glass and could hardly add to them. The position is far different today. The per capita income in India is expected to rise from Rs. 246 to Rs. 321 a year by the end of the II Plan.

The development of rural life through the Community Project and National Extension Service movement is one of the most hopeful features of development in India. To a superficial observer, it looks as if the results are hardly striking. But having visited these projects in many States, I am confident that the spirit of the people in villages is being remoulded and that the human resources of the village are being harnessed along with the natural resources to produce an integrated development of villages. The Planning Commission, under the leadership of the experienced administrator who is its Deputy Chairman, has been stressing the importance of every family in a village having a plan of development working through a Panchayat, co-operative society and school and paying pecial attention to the needs of women and children. When the movement gathers speed, it will pay accelerated dividends by developing mind and man in the village along with its matter.

One feature of the “India 1958” exhibition that is particularly striking is the excellent research work done in the last few years in the various national science laboratories. Research has developed the use of various chemical, mineral, fuel and leather resources by finding substitutes for crores worth of imports through articles made from local materials. The development of science gives a necessary stimulus to economic development. Dr. A. N. Whitehead has pointed out that the discovery of the differential calculus in Europe helped the industrial revolution there by providing an instrument for detecting technological potentialities otherwise unnoticed. In India, the inherited and trained intelligence of many centuries may well help the progress of science not only along directions pursued by the West but also in new directions relevant for mind and spirit. While the West concentrates on the energy contained in matter, India may develop newer resources of energy–energy too which may help to construct life and not help to destroy it.

When I visited U. S. A. for the first time in 1922, it was nothing like as prosperous as it is now. After the First World War, U. S. A. and Japan which did not participate in it were well-to-do when the other nations which fought in it were suffering. It is in the last thirty years that U. S. A. made enormous strides in economic development beginning with the large scale production of electrical power in Tennesse Valley. I belive that if India maintains its present tempo of development, it will, in 15 to 20 years more, attain a level of living which is as satisfying relatively to her notions of a good life as U. S. A. has attained relatively to her objectives in life. The economic rebirth of India in the present generation bids fair to achieve a new level of living as rich as any in her history.