The Indian Experiment:
PALMER, NORMAN D.
The Indian Experiment India and the West. By Barbara Ward. Norton. 256 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by Norman D. Palmer Chairman, International Relations Graduate Program, University of...
...The author is well aware that "the Indian experiment is approaching a crucial test" and that its success is by no means assured...
...but as an analysis of the dangers and opportunities facing modern man it is a masterly essay by a sensitive Western observer whose faith is even greater than her doubts and fears...
...Miss Ward is too uncritical of the basic philosophy and specific targets of India's development programs...
...Even if the Plan succeeds, India will still remain a tragically poor country, and probably will still be far from economic independence...
...She is also cognizant of the political difficulties which the nation faces...
...Reviewed by Norman D. Palmer Chairman, International Relations Graduate Program, University of Pennsylvania India, the giant among the underdeveloped countries of the non-Communist world, has perhaps advanced farther along the road toward economic development than any other newly independent state...
...The third Indian Five-Year Plan has recently been launched...
...India," she writes, "is in fact the first society to set itself on the way of growth within the framework of the free vote and adult suffrage...
...Yet, important as foreign aid undoubtedly is, it is misleading to suggest that "the success of India's Third Plan depends essentially upon the scale of external assistance," for the success of such a comprehensive national effort depends on many factors, of which foreign aid is only one...
...As a book about India it is rather elementary and disappointing...
...This is, therefore, a particularly appropriate time for an overall analysis of the processes of economic growth, both in the Western world and in the underdeveloped areas, and for a realistic yet sympathetic interpretation of the nature and significance of India's progress...
...Some observers believe that it can effect a "breakthrough" to a stage of selfsustaining growth within a decade or so, if it is able to attain the goals set by its planners...
...She advances the questionable thesis that "effective public policy can be the most effective of all spurs to private expansion," and seems to accept the assumptions of India's planners and political leaders—an assumption shared by a number of American economists—that if the targets for the Third and Fourth Five-Year Plans are met, at the end of a decade India will have reached its much-desired goal of self-sustaining growth...
...Others, sobered by the manifold evidences of political and economic troubles ahead, take a dimmer view of the country's prospects for democratic development, or even for its survival as a united, nation...
...The Third Plan is ambitious in relation to available resources, but frighteningly modest in relation to India's needs...
...The West, in Miss Ward's judgment, has "all the physical resources that are needed to create a new world of opportunity," but she is not so sure that it has "the vision and the will.' Indeed, India and the West is not so much about India as about the future of modern man...
...Almost all, however, agree on the importance of India's great experiment...
...Kennedy may not need to read Miss Ward's book (although he probably will), but many Congressmen could read it with profit to themselves and to the country (although they probably will not...
...According to the 1961 census, the Indian population is now 438 million and its rate of growth is 2.1 per cent...
...Miss Ward is more critical of the West's approach to India's economic difficulties...
...Of this amount, at least $6 billion must come from foreign sources— notably the U.S...
...and "it is still to be proved that any ex-colonial territory can reach effective economic strength within a liberal framework...
...Actually, the whole process of "breakthrough" is much more complex and difficult than Miss Ward and those who share her views seem to realize...
...it calls for an expenditure of more than $23 billion during the period 1961-66...
...With a lucid style and a remarkable economy of words...
...The most valuable chapters are those dealing with India's planning efforts...
...Convinced of the decisive significance of India's experiment and of the need "to extend our vision of the good society to the whole family of man," Miss Ward makes an eloquent plea not merely for aid to India, but for positive action "to make operative in world affairs the deepest convictions of Western life...
...She believes that the Western countries, particularly the United States, should raise their sights, broaden their vision and make a specific long-term commitment to help India achieve the objectives of the Five-Year Plans...
...She calls for a "Marshall Plan" approach to the problem of economic development in underdeveloped countries...
...President Kennedy's March 22 foreign aid message proposed a bolder and more comprehensive approach to foreign aid, in which India figures prominently...
...Barbara Ward's new book, India and the West (a chapter of which appeared in The New Leader of February 27), attempts to perform both tasks...
...and Congress is now engaged in its annual exercise of scrutinizing both the objectives of the Administration's program and its specific financial proposals...
...It is a primer of economic development, with special reference to India, and its approach and spirit are remarkably similar to those of the President's message...
...Miss Ward reviews the history of economic development in the West, the impact of imperialism and Communism upon underdeveloped areas, the experience of India under colonial rule, the nature and implications of India's Five-Year Plans, India's needs for foreign aid in the years ahead and the extent of the West's interests in helping India meet these needs...
Vol. 44 • May 1961 • No. 19
