MISSIONARY EXAMINES SITUATION IN INDIA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28805, 28 January 1959, Page 9

MISSIONARY EXAMINES SITUATION IN INDIA

After 11 years of self-govern-ment, India today is at a turning point. Her future lies between continued democratic evolution or revolution—and revolution could be her path. These views were expressed by the Rev. Max Robinson, a Presbyterian missionary who has spent the last 21 years there, in an address to the Christchurch Rotary Club yesterday. “The issue hangs in the balance today. All the ingredients of revolution are present, but the time has not yet come. “The question is whether democracy can strengthen it roots to meet India’s needs. Her way out may depend upon -the solid help of the democratic nations of the West,” he said. Mr Robinson said that his views on India were mainly confined to an observation of the nation from a small town about 100 miles north of Delhi, where i he was teaching at a Christian theological college, and were coloured by his own attitudes and prejudices. “When we reached India in 1937 we could not see the changes ahead. Then, in 1942, came the /Quit India’ movement and, in 1947, independence. I was among those who thought that we were heading for disaster. “But the last 11 years have shown that India has been able to produce a leadership much better than we ever envisaged. She has been politically stable, and has something to show for her efforts. “Mr Nehru’s kudos in India is high, and rightly so, I consider. He has been able to give the nation the kind of leadership she has needed at this time.” Corruption Universal But he was working against great odds. He continually called upon Indians to work, and work hard, for the future, but illiteracy was still of tremendous proportions, millions of children were unable to go to school because there were neither enough schools nor enough teachers, the increase in population was outstripping the number of jobs becoming available, per capita income was low and poverty was the common lot of many millions.

but worst of all corruption was universal in government and local administration at* all levels. In an effort to overcome these problems, India was tying her economic development to a series of five five-year plans. The nation was now in the third year of the second of these programmes. \ Socialistic “India is going Socialistic—that is the policy of the Congress Party, which has been in power since independence—and it is shown in the published purposes of the five-year plans. “The aims of these are to raise the level of the national income; to press on with industrialisation with all speed; to expand the opportunities for employment; and to bring about an even distribution of incomes and economic power by a reduction of the top incomes and an increase in the lower incomes of her people.” After some years in India, said Mr Robinson, “you get the impression that things are really happening ” With only 18 per cent, of the people literate, it might be asked if they were prey to soap-box orators and opportunist politicians, he said. “Maybe that stage will come, but not yet. The rural people in particular are not yet sufficiently politically aware.” The Congress Party was still the greatest power in the land, with a number of splinter parties, one party which would want to see the establishment of a theocratic. Hindu State, and the Communist Party, in opposition. At present communism was confined in the main to the intellectuals, although there was one Communist - administered State, Kerala, in the south-west provinces. “Communism has not yet seeped down to the masses. But all the seeds of discontent common to depressed peoples are there, and the situation is dangerous. If and when this thinking takes hold among the masses India could collapse into revolution. “India, in common with the other nations of the East, has woken up, and there is no turning back. She must go on, either to democratic evolution or revolution, and much may depend upon the solid help of the free democracies if she is to avoid chaos.”