Needed: A Marshall Plan for Asia

...NEEDED: AN ASIAN MARSHALL PLAN By Minoo R. Masani ONE OF the most potent sources of discord in the growing world community is the gulf that exists between some of the more industrialized, prosperous countries and those that are still eking out their existence: • The United States, with 6 per cent of the world's area, produces about one-third of the world's goods and one-half of its manufactured products...

...How passive or dynamic is its part to be...

...Therefore, out of the new economic projects, only those projects which are considered indispensable will be allowed to proceed...

...Insofar as the Communist threat to the underdeveloped regions—and through them to the free world—is concerned, the picture of the Indian peasant peeping over the Great Wall of China to see which country is making more rapid advances before deciding whether or not to go Communist is altogether fanciful...

...According to United Nations statistics, in 1949 Americans earned an average of $1,440...

...This is clear from the frankness and courage with which Prime Minister Nu of Burma, at a meeting held this summer in Rangoon, admitted the mistakes made by his government and charted a new path: "Because of our intense enthusiasm to achieve these results in the quickest possible time, we have committed several blunders...

...If such nations as India, Burma, Ceylon and Indonesia were to join China in the Soviet bloc, the USSR would need no war to enforce its will on the West...

...The offer and acceptance of aid does not necessarily make much difference...

...It was thousands of years ago that Confucius asked: "Why do you dislike me...

...As the years pass and greater experience is acquired in administration and the laws of economics, there is every reason to believe that the policies of these new governments will be increasingly guided by a sense of realism...

...We have been prompted by an intense desire to achieve national self-sufficiency, to promote living standards...

...The plan may be the best that could be devised for the Union [of Burma], but if it is not in consonance with the financial resources and manpower resources of the country, then it may be likened to a health scheme which prescribes two eggs and one bottle of milk a day and a well-ventilated and quiet house for a poor laborer...

...This "charging of old need with new desire" has created a truly explosive situation...

...But who doesn't make mistakes...

...Inevitably, though, they reflect the fear these countries have of losing their newly-won independence, and an impatience to cease being part of the world's forgotten peoples that prevails among the new ruling class...

...On the other hand, nature has generously endowed these regions with considerable natural resources...

...Are they, as the cynics would have it, caused by the need to get rid of surplus goods and materials...

...Only too often, he does not see in Communism the brave new world that Western Utopians saw in the '30s, but a means of ruthlessly mobilizing a poor nation's manpower and resources so as to attain economic strength, military power and world esteem...

...I have never been among those who trace a simple, automatic relationship between economic prosperity and the maintenance of democratic freedoms, nor among those who believe that filling empty stomachs is the answer to the problem of defeating Communism...

...Though the Una home has more than one room, it is bare of all these items except perhaps a bed...

...Fired by a growing knowledge of better developed countries, the leaders thrown up by these people are expressing an increasingly insistent desire for speedy economic growth and a fuller life...

...I have alwav s argued that an empty mind and soul can provide as good a breeding ground for Communism as an empty stomach...

...Consider some of the paradoxes of this situation...

...They are rich in oil, rubber, jute, iron and manganese ore and many other materials on which the West is dependent in varying degrees...

...Yet even this emergency measure is less important than a long-range program for aiding Asia...

...Is it surprising that, when he is told that wonderful things have been achieved in Soviet Russia and Communist China and is denied a fuller knowledge of Communism's failure to deliver the goods, the Asian intellectual falls a victim of Communist propaganda...

...But a new element has emerged: The old resignation is being replaced by a vague but general resentment against such conditions...

...One was Nangal, erected in the last decade to accommodate the personnel of our largest multi-purpose river valley project, the Bhakhra-Nangal Administration...

...I should like to think that what really actuates these great projects is fraternity, the desire to share with one whose need is greater than one's own...

...We wanted to get a thing done in one month which normally should take one year...

...Indeed, a high per-capita import of manufactured goods would appear usually to accompany high per-capita manufacturing output...

...if not with the prosperity of the United States and Canada, at least with that of France or Italy...

...Deprived of British, French or Dutch rulers on whom to blame all our misfortunes, is it not natural that we should look outside the country for a new scapegoat...

...Let it also be remembered that in countries where national unity is often tenuous and tribal, and racial, religious and linguistic consciousness is still strong and liable to erupt, the sponsoring of economic growth may strengthen democracy by focusing attention and energies on a common purpose...

...Una has none of these...

...Thus newer and broader concept of national security must be evolved to meet the new Soviet economic challenge in Asia...

...A British Chancellor of the Exchequer once made the observation that if every Indian were to wear his dhoti an inch longer, the textile industry of Lancashire would be working three shifts a day...

...National pride demands that one should catch up...

...The plan may be ideal, but it is important to remember that it should be practicable...

...A giant is awakening from his slumber and stretching his arms...

...I have never done anything to help you...

...When you get impatient with the naivete of Asians who are deceived by Communist coexistence propaganda, or you feel righteous indignation at the double standard applied by some to the behavior of the democracies and that of the Communist countries, think of the environment in which the Asian intellectual who is guilty of such attitudes finds himself...

...Sitting on the Opposition benches, I endeavor to function as a constructive critic of our government...

...For every family that has a washing machine, four or five express a desire for one...

...When one visits the homes of officials at Nangal, one finds less jewelry worn than in conventional families, but many of the better-class Nangal homes have radios and even washing machines taken over from withdrawing American families...

...True, his country mav have recently achieved national independence...

...In Nangal, the worker begins furnishing his home at a lower income level than in Una...

...Minoo R. Masani, an Indian businessman and political leader, and V. Vithal Balm, an Indian economist, explain why our effort thus far has lagged behind Asia's pressing needs...

...The per-capita production of goods and services in the United States is approximately 20 times as great as that of the underdeveloped areas, and Western Europe's is about 10 times as great...

...All others will be suspended...

...Governmental policies in Asia and Africa vary a great deal...

...In order to step up production in the economic field, the operation of industrial and mining enterprises, except certain key projects, should not be entrusted solely to those who are only interested in getting salaries...

...The drive for economic development is on in the under-industrialized regions...

...The life expectancy in our part of the world is only about 36 years, or half of what it is in the Atlantic community...

...Are these great programs of altruism, unparalleled in world history, founded on mere charity...

...It would be unrealistic to ignore the fact that certain acts give rise to diffidence among potential investors abroad...

...The withdrawal of Western rule has, however, left him facing tremendous problems...

...Human nature being what it is, the instinctive reaction of a man who looks out from a slum at a beautiful mansion is not that of love for his more fortunate neighbor...

...Yet the new ruling class finds itself ill-equipped for the task...

...In this context, a $500-million loan to India obviously can be more decisive than ten times that amount spent on armaments...

...Nevertheless, I believe that they are undertaken with the best of intentions and motives, and with every concern for the growth of individual freedom and the happiness of the people...

...Sometimes these policies appear to be forcing the pace, budgeting for resources that do not exist, or setting unrealistic goals for governmental ownership and management...

...It will be divorced from reality...

...Often the economic policies of the newly-freed countries may err in one respect or another...

...Insofar as economic self-interest is concerned, experience has shown that there is not the slightest incompatibility between the industrialization of a country and an increase in aggregate exports to it, not merely in terms of capital goods and raw materials but even of finished products...

...The question is not whether this transformation will occur but at what rate and how, and whether or not these people will do the job in association with the rest of the free world...

...But we have to give some weight to the plea that the process must be rapid enough to satisfy the swiftly burgeoning aspirations of people suddenly released from a Malthusian world and endowed with political power who, like Oliver Twist, are asking for more—more to eat, more clothing, more living space, more education— before the means to satisfy these demands have become available...

...the other was a small town called Una, from which many of the construction workers for the giant dam had been recruited...

...I do not find myself in agreement with various of its policies, be they in the sphere of economic affairs or international relations...

...The people are no longer content with the status of "the man with the hoe" and are not prepared to accept for themselves and their children a permanently inferior place in world society...

...At a salary of $21 per month, he tends to provide his one-room apartment with beds, a table, and a chair or a stool...

...I myself am an independent member of the House of the People in Delhi...

...The claims of political realism, advocates of such governmental policies insist with some force, must be balanced against the claims of economic realism...

...Every time a man leaves his village and joins a new industrial township or moves to a city, his way of life changes and his wants diversify...

...From practical experience, I no longer like to see Government's finger in all sorts of economic pies...

...To what extent are such investment and aid desirable...

...For instance, the Middle East has two-lhirds of the world's crude oil, all of the world's tin is produced by underdeveloped countries, the Belgian Congo alone produces 60 per cent of the world's uranium and 90 per cent of its radium, and the entire rubber supply comes from underdeveloped areas...

...Now it is evident that we cannot unduly hasten our plans...

...What is its specific function in this scheme of things...

...On the other hand, the global fantasies of the Kremlin can be checked if these underdeveloped nations can acquire the same political and social stability as the European democracies...

...In the last year or two, the Soviet rulers have skillfully switched the emphasis of their foreign policy from the West to the East, and from the military plane to the political, ideological and economic plane...

...The experience of my country during the first half of this century is in keeping with this generalization...

...Are material self-interest or considerations of security in themselves adequate reasons for the interest that one part of the world should take in another...

...The underdeveloped areas embrace Africa, practically the whole of Asia (except Japan) and a large part of South America...

...What have been the real mainsprings of the Marshall Plan, of Point Four and of Technical Cooperation Aid...

...Diverse in race, religion and culture, they share one common condition: Their production, income and living standards are deplorably low...

...If the underprivileged people's age-old resignation to their poverty had continued, perhaps this state of affairs, though sad, would not be of crucial world significance...

...In bringing about these results, we adopted hasty methods...

...Is the defeat of Communism their sole purpose...

...The home of two-thirds of the free world's population, these nations live at various stages of history, ranging from the 5th to the 20th century...

...The very basis of democracy is the right of every people to make mistakes and to pay for them in the hope that they will not be repeated...

...What role will Western capital play in this situation...

...the Indonesian worker earned only $27...

...Memories of past political subjection combine with resentment of continuing claims of white supremacy to make the United States, the current symbol of white supremacy, the obvious target of our righteous anger...

...If so, they would constitute a new form of exploitation...

...The "inevitability of gradualness," as Sidney Webb used to call it, is not a concept with which hungry people are likely to have much patience...

...Lacking capital resources and trained manpower, and inhibited by national pride from asking for aid, the Asian intellectual seeks some method of upgrading his country overnight so that it can face the West on terms of equality and self-respect...

...Too fast a timetable will no doubt have to be revised, and too ambitious a target lowered...

...In this regard, I believe that the situation in Europe which led to the Marshall Plan exists in Asia today...

...The answers to these questions may be predicated on motives of self-interest, considerations of national and international security, the sentiment of altruism or a combination of all three...

...they may rely too much on the instrumentality of the state and be over-ambitious...

...On the shelf there will be some crockery, and the walls will almost certainly be decorated with calendars and a family photograph or two...

...But a nation that sees a process which will afford a richer life, and which sees that this can be achieved alongside of, and through, the practice of democratic freedoms, is much more likely to resist totalitarianism's false promises than a people which is ground down in hopeless poverty and degradation...

...There can be no question that if, as a result of current plans and developments in many underdeveloped countries, more employment were to be provided and a little more money were to find its way into the pockets of large masses of people in the towns and countryside, additional purchasing power would create a market of tremendous potentialities...

...The difficulties in our economy are those of expansion, the pains are the pains of growth...

...They should be entrusted also to those who have profit motives...

...Sometimes these policies are marked by a certain amount of doctrinaire thinking, and are based on preconceptions that are a carryover of the period when power and responsibility were denied to native people...

...Already, only ten years after independence in the case of several Asian countries, signs of such a hopeful trend may be discerned...

...Such a purpose, though good, is not in itself adequate...

...If that were so, they would in the end prove unacceptable to those who seek their aid...

...On the economic side, there is generally a shockingly low national income which must provide for a rapidly rising population: on the social and cultural side, there is a predominantly illiterate population, steeped largely in ignorance and superstition, with low phvsical vilalitv and low social mobilitv...

...The Nangal housewife also uses curtains, a thing unheard of in Una, and the Nangal population is more dress-conscious, In addition, Nangal has a cinema, clubs and recreation centers...

...A recent survey of living conditions in two small towns in the Punjab illustrates this point...