Economist Completes 10-Year Study Of South Asia’s Needs

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31628, 14 March 1968, Page 18

Economist Completes 10-Year Study Of South Asia’s Needs

(X.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

NEW YORK. In a comprehensive, often gloomy study of South Asia and its 748 million people, the Swedish economist, Dr Gunnar Myrdal, has suggested a widespread need of changes in attitudes and institutions by the South Asians themselves, the “New York Times” News Service reports. Dr Myrdal. who spent 10 years studying 11 nations, from India to the Philippines, for the Twentieth Century Fund, found the masses apathetic: social and economic inequalities extreme and increasing; population exploding at unprecedented rates; agriculture underdeveloped and hunger widespread; and manual labour and wage employment held in low regard.

Rather than stress aid from the West in the study, he calls for strong campaigns for birth control by the South Asian Governments; quick boosts for agriculture through land reform, giving incentives to the now-land-less and present sharecroppers ai.d tenants; and an overhaul of the education system now oriented “for poverty.” “There must be State intervention to overcome

development difficulties more formidable than Western nations ever have faced,” Dr Myrdal says. “South Asia needs more Mahatma Gandhis who would sway the upper classes, walk the country roads and inspire the people in their own villages.” Aid from the West, Dr Myrdal argues, could be only a marginal factor. But, he says, to the destitute, even

marginal aid is crucial. He urges better-off countries to increase capital flow, and to help even more by the preferential purchase of South Asian products. Without basic institutional changes, Dr Myrdal foresees “increasing misery and explosive potentialities.” He down-grades any idea of widespread Communist take-over, but holds that the war in Vietnan. is likely to increase communism and racism in that area, and he urges an “orderly retreat” by the United States.

His three-volume, 2284-page study, “Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations,” was released in New York this week by the Twentieth Century Fund, a philanthropic. foundation, which, since 1957, has contributed 5U5250.000, to his project. There has also been support for it since 1961 from Dr Myrdal’s Institute for International Economic Studies in Stockholm.

Now 69, Dr Myrdal published in 1944 the classic study of Negro-white relations, “An American Dileemma,” which contended that Government intervention would be needed to solve that conflict between American ideals and discrimination.

Before his latest study, he served 10 years as executive secretary of the United Nations’ Economic Commission for Europe. At a news conference, Dr Myrdal said: “I wanted to be uidlplomitic, I'm not afraid of hurting feelings. Hlusions are a danger, opportunitistic illusions are even more dangerous, and truth is wholesome.'

“I’m not a defeatist, because I draw radical conclusion;. These things must be done.” The new study deals mainly with India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines and to a lesser extent with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

During his news conference, Dr Myrdal tried not to emphasise his views on the war in Vietnam. His suggestion of “an orderly withdrawal” by the United States came in response to a question. In his book, in which he devotes about 20 pages to the war and its background, he writes: “For many centuries Vietnam defended itself against Chinese encroachment and sought a distinct identity. There is no reason to suppose that this tradition would not be kept alive under a Communist regime—unless, of course, people felt that they were the object of a relentless attack from the West.

“To the Vietnamese people, a Communist state, intent on preserving a maximum of independence from China, could hardly be a worse alternative than a prolongation of the misery they have suffered these last 20 years. “Although Westerners, as well as the upper strata in South Asia, generally prefer to ignore it the racial issue is increasingly evident. “To the people in the villages agd the paddy fields, the Americans coming in their helicopters and jet planes to spread fire and death are more than powerful and dangerous strangers. They are white devils—a concept with a long tradition in this part of the world. “And each increase in the war effort has left the situation as bad as it was in the beginning, if not worse.” Dr Myrdal contends that the very weakness of the Saigon Government increases United States dependence on it. Thus, the usual disadvantage of having satellites and puppet governments—that the powerful supporting government easily becomes the hostage of its client and dependent on his precarious circumstances —is one more factor in the automatic, accelerating escalation of the war in Vietnam. Dr Myrdal asserts that

French repression during colonial rule in Indo-China left the underground Communist Party in the forefront of the Vietnamese struggle for independence. This, he saysenabled the French to contend that in fighting Vietnamese nationalism they were in fact fighting a war against Communism.

“A considerable and gradually increasing part of IndoChina came under Communist rule or came to lean towards Communism,” Dr Myrdal writes, “but this was not the result of any action by China: it was a reaction to French colonial policy. “With decreasing support from the people, the South Vietnamese leadership has had to rule by ever-more authoritarian methods. “A considerable number of the rebels may be Communists in some sense—and more are probably becoming Communists—but they are also, and more fundamentally, Vietnamese.”