POPULATION PROBLEM BEDEVILS PLANNING

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27909, 5 March 1956, Page 10

POPULATION PROBLEM BEDEVILS PLANNING

INDIA TODA Y—lll

[By

O. K. H. SPATE,

Professor of Geography at the Australian National University]

[Reprinted by Arrangement with the "Sydney Morning Herald ’]

The observant visitor to India cannot fail to be struck by the enormous amount of unemployment, very thinly disguised by the multiplication of useless jobs. It takes two men to sell a postage stamp, three to carry one’s card to the official one is visiting. In almost all sectors of trade and industry exchanges are clogged by the sticky hands of scores of middlemen; in the countryside officials hesitate to introduce simple mechanisation since the immediate displacement of labour seems disastrous. For all the useful work it does, a large proportion of the “employed" labour force might as well be on the dole.

There is no dole, except in occasional local emergencies, but the Indian tradition provides for unemployment by sharing out one man s job among two or three or four. It may be a wiser and more humane tradition than ours—at least the surplus numbers are given a position in the scheme of things, the illusion of doing something useful. It is against this background that all plans for development must be discussed, and it is not a static background, for nearly 2,000,000 people come on to the labour market each year. The first Five-Year Plan set relatively modest targets for industrial and even agricultural expansion, and with some exceptions these were reasonably well attained. The consensus of opinion, lay and expert alike, is that the second Plan must be much bolder. Its target is nothing less than to increase the national income by 25 per cent, in five years, a rate about twice that of the United States or Australia. The second Plan shows a distinct shift of emphasis from agricultural to industrial development. Total Government expenditure would be increased from £2,113,000,000 (Australian) in the first to £3,196.000,000 in the second Plan.

Craft Industries Important It attaches great importance to the rehabilitation and development of the craft industries. These demand much labour and little capital, and since labour is in excess and capital much tighter, it is proposed to restrict factory expansion in consumer goods to essential new items (such as antibiotics) and export lines. Capital investment in factories would be directed to really heavy basic industry, such as iron and steel, machinery, and machine tools. Thus the proposed increase in fac-tory-made cotton textiles is only 10 per cent., in hand-made 100 per cent.; though factory production would still be five-eighths of the total.

There is a social case for fostering the hand industries, which are mainly found in the country and the smaller towns; this would at least disguise or mitigate unemployment. But economically they cannot compete with factory goods in quality or price. Factory industry, uncontrolled, could expand rapidly enough to complete the ruin of the crafts, but, precisely because of its greater labour efficiency, not rapidly enough to take in the displaced craftsmen. And, on the whole, the tradition of Indian capitalism is to go for the quick returns of light consumer-goods industry.

Capital Sulks Here we sight some of the rocks

ahead. Already capital is sulky, and there is substance in some of its contentions. It may well be true, for instance, that the great Bombay industrial area faces a very’ severe power shortage which could be easily overcome if only the central and state governments could make up their minds about priorities in hydro-electric development. On the other hand, this reserve has been a factor in the central government’s decision to nationalise a larger sector of insurance, in order to ensure more ready mobilisation of funds fey the plan. Steeper taxation, though essential and not unjust, also does lot evoke much enthusiasm among nessmen. To shore up the crafts, the plan .wf. line proposes an excise on factory iroducts to maintain price parities with hand-made goods. This would in effect, direct taxation which w«uld bear most heavily on the poor, sxme of whom would be able to dVSet higher prices for what they buy by getting more for what they sell. ’ This seems an elaborate way of liking in each others’ washing, which, by the proliferation of useless jobs fix! services, is in effect what they do now. It is fair to add that, in a different context, the plan makes a case fur greater indirect taxation: it is essential to mobilise directly a greater propertion of the national income for investment in development, and "one cannot escape the logic of the tact that the mass of consumption is by the mass of the people.”

It was easier to shake off British rule, easier even to shake off the inferiority complex induced by British rule, than to jettison the immemorial tradition of social fragmentation; the tendency, at all levels of society, to divide responsibility, to delegate powers, to surround all activities with a net of rules and regulations, checks and balances. It is an open question whether India, so vast, so fragmented, can plan effectively without totalitarian methods; and most foreign observers would probably agree that of all the great countries of the world, India is probably the one in which totalitarianism would be

least likely to deliver even the material goods—this by reason of the tremendous defence in depth offered by the very massiveness of numbers allied to tradition. The result might be the worst of both the Western and Eastern worlds. A Young Country This may be an unduly cynical and gloomy view: young countries, and India today is a young country, have a knack of disconcerting their candid friends. The record of traditional private enterprise in India, a few great names (such as Tata) apart, is far from inspiring even economically, let alone socially, and in itself gives something of an empirical justification of planning. The directing groups in India are convinced that they can successfully combine broadly socialist planning with the maintenance and, inoeed, the extension of democracy. Such is the stale of India that it is their duty as well as their right to try: and it is surely the interest, as well as (on human grounds) the duty, of the Western world to give all aid in its power—and without strings. (To be concluded.)