Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru considers his 'Five Year Plan' as the
greatest show on earth. The Pandit is so much enamoured
of it, that he refuses to listen to words of caution
and brushes aside anyone who dares to offer his guidance.
The country is so vast, its poverty is so grim, and
the need for the eradication of poverty is so urgent,
says Pandit Nehru, that the plan should be carried through,
at any cost.
The much expected foreign aid, has not been up to the
mark—it comes in a tickling way.
And yet, the plan perilously perched on a rock of emotion,
depends upon Dollars and Roubles.
Unless the 'aid' assumes good dimensions, the shape
of the plan is bound to get distorted.
With the almost half-hearted help form foreign countries,
a bit, ambitions plan is being propped up.
"The plan is not over-ambitious" says the
panel of economists who probed into the problem, but
they are not themselves either enthusiastic or confident.
The statement of the panel is more in the nature of
cajolery, rather than an appraisal.
The plan is bound to succeed, the panel promises, but
qualifies the statement, with 'ifs' and 'buts'.
If the foreign aid is forth-coming in decent dimensions,
and if the Home front could supply its quota, the fund
needed for the implementation of the plan could be built
up, the panel says.
But, the panel has not gone into the aspect of finding
out the possibility or otherwise of getting this fund.
The panel is not happy about the food position and points
out that food will have to be imported.
That, that would be a strain on the resources available,
is not a small matter. The economists further point
out that Rationing of food will have to be introduced
to tide over the difficulty. They also envisage a sort
of compulsory procurement of food grains.
So, 'Tighten Your Belt'—seems to be the advice offered.
Mal-administration, corruption, scandal and a host of
other evils are so rampant, that the masses are fast
losing their faith in their Masters.
And if, as the panel suggests or warns, Rationing is
to be re-introduced, it would be the last straw to break
the camel's back.
But, come what may, says Pandit Nehru, the 'show' should
go on—for he thinks that it is the greatest show on
earth.
So was the Pyramid, says the 'Eastern Economist', and
advises the Congress to draw a lesson from that.
The pyramids too were great public works executed by
government with a single mind. For a time they operated
to the benefit of the people to whom substantial employment
was given. But when the Pharaohs drove the pyramids
beyond the endurance of their people, and the capacity
of the economy, they became instruments of terrible
tyranny; in the end they demolished themselves and thus
ended even Pyramid building, supreme urge of their mistaken
lives.
No government with the need for accommodating its people
dare ignore the lessons of ancient Egypt—wrote the 'Eastern
Economist.
But the Nehru government refuses to heed to advices,
or warnings for it is bent upon the one desire, to exhibit
the greatest show on Earth!!
(02-02-1958)