Mrs Gandhi's Steps To Left Found To Be Slow

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32120, 16 October 1969, Page 7

Mrs Gandhi's Steps To Left Found To Be Slow

(By an N .Z.P A .-Reuter correspondent)

NEW DELHI, Oct. 15. Indians are wondering whether after the dramatic nationalisation of banks, the Prime Minister’s steps towards socialism are getting slower and slower.

The humid summer air of Delhi was thick with rumours of an impending State swoop on other economic sectors, from foreign trade to the press, after Mrs Gandhi clamped 14 major commercial banks under State control during the crisis that threatened her political future and Government last July. Commentators forecast a swing to the left and Mrs Gandhi's opponents 'in the ruling Congress Party as well as the Hindu revivalist, Jan Sangh, and the business-

backed Swatantra parties accused her of' going Communist. The 51-year-old Prime Minister firmly denied this charge, but declared that the bank take-over was only a “first step” towards Socialism and that others would follow.

Now observers—who expected more sudden moves—see the left-ward march as a series of shuffles toward firmer direction, of an increased State influence over the economy, rather than big strides. The Foreign Trade Ministry has rejected suggestions that a blanket State take-over of India’s privately-handled imports of raw materials like steel, cotton and crude oil is imminent.

Control of foreign trade would be “progressively” channelled through State agencies, the Minister, Mr Bali Ram Bhagat, said. The newly - nationalised banks have started off en-

thusiastically, and are working out schemes to give credit to people allegedly neglected before by bankers who were said to have channelled depositors’ funds to the industries they controlled. Now students, small farmers, people who want to start small industries and others on the middle, rather than the top, financial rungs of Indian society, find it easier to get loans. Officials say that large industrialists will be banned from launching factories to make consumer items like soap, radios and sewing machines.

The small-scale industrialist —sometimes working out of his own home—will control the manufacture of these items.

The Industrial Development Ministry is working on a scheme under which bank loans to private industries will be converted into equity shares to stop businessmen from making “undue profits” with depositors’ money. Businessmen are not too pleased about the new trend although they toned down their public statements, fearing that the water may get hotter if they shout too loud while it is still only lukewarm.

“It would be necessary that proper safeguards are taken to ensure that the banking system continues to promote the development of all sectors which depended on banks for their financial requirements," a recent statement by the Federation on Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry said in a veiled plea that big business should not be left out in the cold.

It said that the investment climate was uncertain. But Mrs Gandhi told industrialists in Madras recently: "By co-operating with Government in bringing about an orderly change, business will in fact be insuring their own long-term interests instead of being overwhelmed by subversive forces which would otherwise gain ascendancy.” This was a warning that stability for economic growth could not come if Indian workers and peasants did not

feel that they were getting a fair deal.

If discontent among the poorer sections of society is gradually , removed through properly-implemented measures like bank nationalisation, any possible threat of a Communist take-over in India would be averted and a Socialist government and enlighted industry would be able to flourish together, serving a contented 530 million people. Thus runs the argument of Mrs Gandhi’s supporters, who say that she has pulled the carpet from under the feet of the Socialist and Communist parties by championing “the people.” But the Prime Minister's Right wing critics are bound to do a lot of Communist witch-hunting which she labels McCarthyism which the country waits for the results of her moves.