The Press SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1942. Developing India’s War Potential

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23753, 26 September 1942, Page 4

The Press SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1942. Developing India’s War Potential

General Sir Alan Hartley’s statement on the Government of India’s plans for carrying out the recommendations of the United States technical mission draws attention to an aspect of the Indian problem which has been somewhat obscured by the recent political disturbances. Because of the German advance into the Caucasus and the Japanese advance to the borders of India, the Middle East is likely to become a major theatre of war; and because of the destruction of a large part of Russia’s industrial equipment and the loss of the raw material resources of the Netherlands Indies the once overwhelming superiority of the United Nations in war production has been substantially reduced. The development of India’s vast war potential has therefore become important in order to maintain this supremacy and also in order to ease the burden on shipping by creating a supply centre handy to the Middle East. Shortage of steel has, for instance, become a limiting factor on shipbuilding and the output of war equipment in both Britain and the United States. India has huge deposits of high grade iron ore in close proximity to her coalfields and has, moreover, abundant supplies of manganese and limestone. But although her potentialities for the production of steel are probably as great as those of the United Spates, her output of steel in 1941 was only 1,250,000 tons—about 1 per cent, of current United States production—and is scheduled to reach only 7,000,000 tons under the expansion programme adopted by the Government of India in the early months of the war. She has no automobile factory, only one aeroplane assembly works, and no plant for the construction of internal combustion engines. Her resources of hydroelectric power, another important factor in industrialisation, are also in an elementary stage of development; out of total resources estimated at 27,000,000 horsepower, less than 3 per cent, are in use. It cannot be said that the British Government and the Government of India have, since the outbreak of war, neglected India’s possibilities. The output of ammunition by Indian factories has increased sixfold and of small arms threefold since 1939; army uniforms are being turned out at the rate of 5,000,000 a month; the aluminium industry has been started; and there has been notable progress in the chemical industries. But these achievements are remarkable only in relation to pre-war output; in relation to India’s industrial potential they are slight.

The immediate obstacles to a rapid expansion of output are shortages of skilled workers and machine tools. Less than 2 per cent, of India’s population is employed in modern industries; and of these only, a small percentage are skilled workers by British and American standards. The Government’s present scheme provides for the training of only 15,000 skilled workers a year—a clear enough indication that it does not expect any spectacular growth of India’s productive capacity. Production of machine tools is only beginning in India, so that for the present the newer factories must rely mainly on what can be spared for them by the machine tool industries of Britain and the United States. But the main obstacles are political rather than technical. The United States technical nfission believed that’ the best way to increase industrial production in India would be to introduce mass production methods and a rigid Government control of materials, priorities, and prices. To this end it recommended the creation of a central authority to control all phases of production. The Government of India received these proposals without enthusiasm. It raised the same objections to the proposal for a central production authority as the Churchill Government had raised against the proposals for a Ministry of Production. And it intimated that industrialists had found unacceptable the mission’s scheme for a State-directed industrial reorganisation which would make possible the adoption of mass production methods. The industrialists, it seemed, preferred “ voluntary ” co-operation in the war effort. Their attitude provoked this bitter comment by the Calcutta “ Statesman,” a British-owned paper which normally supports the Government: —

The American mission’s urgent recommendation that the technique of mass production must be adapted to this country meets with the disapproval of businessmen. In effect, the Government of India declares this technique to be impossible because businessmen have not the necessary patriotism. They look at the war from the angle of profit and employment. The introduction of mass production would mean control and regimentation beyond what they would accept. And so a proposal on the fate of which the war in the end may depend was turned down.

The problem created by the attitude of India’s industrial leaders is, it may be suspected, related to the wider problem of India’s political future. If the organisations representing politically-conscious India could be persuaded to assume the leadership of India’s war effort, if the war became for India a war of independence, little would be heard of the recalcitrance of a small handful of wealthy men.