Our Basic Approach

...Normally speaking, it may be said that the forces of a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer and thus increase the gap between them...

...The disciplines of religion and social usage fade away without giving place to other disciplines, moral or spiritual...

...We talk of a welfare state and of democracy and socialism...

...Planning does not mean a mere collection of projects or schemes, but a thought-out approach to strengthening the base and the pace of progress so that the community advances on all fronts...

...So also have Marxist economics, which are in many ways out of date, even though they throw a considerable light on economic processes...

...Nothing is so remarkable as the progressive conquest of understanding of the physical world by the mind of man today...

...We thus have to do our own thinking, profiting by the example of others but essentially trying to find a path for ourselves suited to our own conditions...

...In a sense, every country, whether it is capitalist, socialist or Communist, accepts the ideal of a welfare state...

...Various democratic processes interfere with these normal trends...

...In considering these economic aspects of our problems, we have always to remember the basic approach of peaceful means...

...As this process continues, the texture of our life and thinking gradually changes...

...If the society we aim at cannot be brought about by big-scale violence, will small-size violence help...

...Thus, violence cannot possibly lead today to a solution of any major problem, because violence has become much too terrible and destructive...

...A balance must be struck and an integrated national plan evolved...

...IT IS OFTEN SAID that there is a sense of frustration and depression in India, and that the old buoyancy of spirit is not to be found at a time when enthusiasm and hard work are most needed...

...But what is socialism...

...Capitalism itself has, therefore, developed some socialistic features, even though its major aspects remain...

...I think this is essentially correct, though that capitalist structure itself has undergone and is continually undergoing a change because of democratic and other struggles against inequality...

...Communism charges the capitalist structure of society with being based on violence and class conflict...

...Unfortunately, many of the political aspects of Communism have tended to distort our vision of socialism...

...What has happened in the past in the industrially advanced countries has little bearing on us today...

...Hence the inner conflict and tumult of our times...

...the Suez incident in 1956...

...The touchstone should be how far any political or social theory enables the individual to rise above his petty self and think in terms of the good of all...

...The problems that India faces are, to some extent, common to other countries, but—much more so—there are new problems for which we have not got parallels or historical precedents elsewhere...

...In industrially advanced countries, there has been a continuous and steady upward trend of economic development...

...It need not be based on any dogma, but should rather take existing facts into consideration...

...This does not apply to countries which are not industrially developed...

...Its unfortunate association with violence encourages a certain evil tendency in human beings...

...Even if it does not indulge normally in physical violence, its language is that of violence, its thought is violent and it does not seek to change by persuasion or peaceful democratic pressures but by coercion and, indeed, by destruction and extermination...

...Western economics, therefore, though helpful, have little bearing on our present-day problems...

...Socialism is basically a different approach from that of capitalism, though I think it is true that the wide gap between them tends to lessen, because many of the ideas of socialism are gradually incorporated even in the capitalist structure...

...and we must not forget the ethical and spiritual aspects of life which are ultimately basic to culture and civilization and which have given some meaning to life...

...What happened in Hungary was not essentially a conflict between Communism and anti-Communism...

...It is only through a planned approach on socialistic lines that steady progress can be attained, though even that will take time...

...There will be no victory, only defeat for everyone...

...Is this something apart from and transcending the good of the individuals composing it...

...We see here the powerful influence of wrong means and methods...

...Its supervision of individual freedom brings about powerful reactions...

...Democracy, allied to capitalism, has undoubtedly toned down many of its evils and, in fact, is different now from what it was a generation or two ago...

...It succeeds in some measure in giving a content to man's life...

...On their request, the memo was then published in New Delhi's Economic Review, from which this text is abridged...

...The question is how to get rid of this and have a classless society with equal opportunities for all...

...It is, in a sense, a world phenomenon...

...Its contempt for what might be called the moral and spiritual side of life not only ignores something that is basic in man but also deprives human behavior of standards and values...

...But whatever we may think about it, we have arrived at a stage in the world when an attempt of forcible imposition of ideas on any large section of people is bound ultimately to fail...

...The basic thing, I believe, is that wrong means will not lead to right results and that this is no longer merely an ethical doctrine but a practical proposition...

...Some people probably think of socialism vaguely just as something which does good and aims at equality...

...They are good concepts, but they hardly convey a clear and unambiguous meaning...

...The fact that nuclear tests continue even though it is well recognized that they are very harmful in the present and in the future, the fact that all kinds of weapons of mass destruction are being produced and piled up even though it is universally recognized that their use may well exterminate the human race, brings out this paradox with startling clarity...

...This may well happen in other countries, too...

...That does not take us very far...

...That is the tragic paradox of this atomic and sputnik age...

...And yet the spread of education in all its forms is itself a tremendous liberating force which ultimately will not tolerate that suppression of freedom...

...We always have a difficult choice before us: whether to concentrate on production by itself in selected and favorable areas, thus temporarily ignoring the poor areas, or to try and develop backward areas at the same time, so as to lessen the inequalities between regions...

...Communists as well as anti-Communists both seem to imagine that a principle can only be stoutly defended by the language of violence and by condemning those who do not accept it...

...There is much talk in Communism of the contradictions of capitalist society and there is truth in that analysis...

...For both of them there are no shades, there is only black and white...

...Matter and energy and spirit seem to overlap...

...Conquering the physical world, he fails to conquer himself...

...On the one side, there is this great and overpowering progress in science and technology and their manifold consequences, and, on the other, a certain mental exhaustion of civilization itself...

...It may—and, 1 think, in present-day India it should—encourage private enterprise in many fields, though even that private enterprise must necessarily fit in with the national plan and have such controls as are considered necessary...

...Rationalism, on the other hand, with all its virtues, somehow appears to deal with the surface of things, without uncovering the inner core...

...It tells us that the general character of social, political and intellectual life in a society is governed by its productive resources, so that, if they change and develop, so the life and thinking of the community change...

...This, again, is another contradiction...

...The new Western civilization, with all its triumphs and achievements as well as its atomic bombs, also appears inadequate and therefore the feeling grows that there is something wrong with our civilization...

...Unfortunately, Communism became too closely associated with the necessity for violence and thus the idea which it placed before the world became a tainted one...

...This kind of thing is euphemistically called "having close cultural and economic ties...

...Their systems of education and health are probably the best in the world...

...This is not merely in evidence in our country...

...It is not the approach of tolerance, of feeling that perhaps others might also have some share of the truth...

...As a matter of fact, the countries that are advanced today were economically better off than India today, in terms of per-capita income, before their industrialization began...

...The only way is through hard work, by increasing the productivity of the nation and organizing an equitable distribution of its products...

...Science is advancing far beyond the comprehension of a very great part of the human race and posing problems which most of us are incapable of understanding, much less of solving...

...Can this be achieved through methods of violence, or is it possible to bring about those changes through peaceful methods...

...Even after a country has become independent, it may continue to be economically dependent on other countries...

...In Germany, both the Communist party and the Social Democratic party were swept away by Hitler...

...In India, any appeal to violence is particularly dangerous, because of its inherent disruptive character...

...To some extent it fills the vacuum...

...Also, what happened in Hungary demonstrated that the desire for national freedom is stronger even that any ideology and cannot ultimately be suppressed...

...Also, the technique of struggle evolved by Communism has given violence a predominant part...

...In our efforts to insure material prosperity, we have not paid any attention to the spiritual element in human nature...

...But it is said—and rightly—that there is suppression of individual freedom there...

...This is completely opposed to the peaceful approach which Gandhi taught us...

...This applies to countries, as well as to groups or regions or classes within countries...

...We talk of the good of society...

...It must be remembered that it is not by some magic adoption of socialist or capitalist method that poverty suddenly leads to riches...

...Further, this economic development has spread—though in varying degrees-to all classes...

...Indeed, real social progress will come only when an opportunity is given to the individual to develop, provided "the individual" is not a selected group but comprises the whole community...

...We have too many fissiparous tendencies for us to take risks...

...Even the terrible losses of the world wars have not prevented this trend, insofar as these highly developed countries are concerned...

...The old civilizations, with the many virtues that they possess, have obviously proved inadequate...

...It represented nationalism striving for freedom from foreign control...

...Speaking of myself, I find this approach wholly unscientific, unreasonable and uncivilized, whether it is applied in the realm of religion or economic theory or anything else...

...I have the greatest admiration for many of the achievements of the Soviet Union...

...In present circumstances, this will lead to war and tremendous destruction...

...Among these great achievements is the value attached to the child and the common JAWAHARLAL NEHRU, India's Prime Minister since independence, first set forth these views in a confidential memorandum for a group of Congress party friends...

...That is the old approach of the bigoted aspects of some religions...

...Surely not...

...In fact, we then have a backward and poverty-stricken socialism...

...Science itself has arrived at the stage when vast new possibilities and mysteries loom ahead...

...Imperialism or colonialism suppressed and suppresses progressive and social forces...

...But in doing so we should not forget the basic human element and the fact that our objective is individual improvement and the lessening of inequalities...

...Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself...

...Religion comes into conflict with rationalism...

...COMMUNISM comes in the wake of this disillusionment and offers some kind of faith and some kind of discipline...

...It is a lengthy and difficult process...

...This was exemplified by...

...But we see the growing contradictions within the rigid framework of Communism itself...

...In India, we have a terrible problem of extreme poverty in certain large regions, apart from the general poverty of the country...

...If socialism is introduced in a backward and underdeveloped country, it does not suddenly make it any less backward...

...Fascism has all these evil aspects of violence and extermination in their grossest forms and at the same time has no acceptable idea...

...Socialism, of course, deliberately wants to interfere with normal processes, and thus not only adds to the productive forces but lessens inequalities...

...Partly because that itself may lead to big-scale violence and partly because it produces an atmosphere of conflict and of disruption...

...Socialism should, therefore, be considered apart from these political elements or the inevitability of violence...

...In my own life I have seen amazing changes, and I am sure that in the course of the life of the next generation these changes will be even greater, if humanity is not overwhelmed and annihilated by an atomic war...

...While there has been this conquest of external conditions, there is at the same time the strange spectacle of a lack of moral fiber and of self-control in man as a whole...

...Socialism is, after all, not only a way of life but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems...

...The individual should not be so sacrified...

...Planning is essential, because otherwise we waste our resources, which are very limited...

...If the individual is ignored and sacrificed for what is considered the good of society, is that the right objective to have...

...and perhaps we might also keep in view the old Vedantic ideal of the life-force which is the inner base of everything that exists...

...That national plan need not and, indeed, should not have rigidity...

...Religion, as practiced, either deals with matters rather unrelated to our normal lives and thus adopts an ivory-tower attitude, or is allied to certain social usages which do not fit in with the present age...

...Inevitably, it aligns itself with certain privileged groups or classes, because it is interested in preserving a social and economic status quo...

...It is absurd to imagine that out of the conflict the socially progressive forces are bound to win...

...Indeed, in those countries the struggle for development is very difficult and sometimes, in spite of the efforts made, economic inequalities not only remain but tend to become worse...

...WITHOUT utilizing the modern methods which have brought great material advance to some countries of the West, we remain poor—and, what is more, tend to become poorer, because of the pressure of an increasing population...

...We have seen in the last year or two that it is not easy for even great powers to reintroduce colonial control over territories which have recently become independent...

...In a poorly developed country, the capitalist method offers no chance...

...Communism has definitely allied itself to the approach of violence...

...But, in spite of its apparent success, it fails—partly because of its rigidity but even more so because it ignores certain essential needs of human nature...

...Capitalism, in a few countries at least, has achieved this common welfare to a very large extent, though it is far from having solved its own problems and there is a basic lack of something vital...

...I do not see any way out of our vicious circle of poverty except by utilizing the new techniques and sources of power which science has placed at our disposal...

...But all these are relatively minor considerations...