Vasudevan-On Price's 'Ideology & Indian Planning'

7/27/2019 Vasudevan-On Price's 'Ideology & Indian Planning'

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American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

On "Ideology and Indian Planning"Author(s): A. VasudevanSource: American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1968), pp. 214-216Published by: American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3485280 .

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COMMENTOn "Ideology and Indian Planning"

By A. VASUDEVANI

THEATTEMPT on the part of ProfessorRalph B. Price to bring out theideologyin (ratherthanand) Indianplanning (AmericanJournalof Eco-nomicsandSociology,Vol. 26, No. 1, January, 967) could be regardedasremarkable ut for someblemishesandmisreadingof the Indiansituation.The following remarksare intendedto promotea betterunderstanding fthe subject n question.ProfessorPrice's opening sentence, "The Congress Party of India isnoted for the strongideologicalpositionof its pre- and post-independenceleadershipand for its "adoptionof the goal of buildinga 'socialistpatternof society,'" temptsone to ask two importantquestions,viz., what is theperiod of pre-independenceeadership,and how strong is the ideologicalposition of this leadership. From the articleone guesses that ProfessorPrice has probably n his mind the periodbetweenthe early30's and 1947as the one constituting pre-independence eadership. But one is notcertainaboutthe strengthof the ideologyof leadershipduringthis period,even if it is grantedthat therewas an ideology.A study of national leaders in the struggle for independencewouldshow that there were liberals, extremists,middle-of-the-roaders,nd anynumberof men with different exturesof ideas. It may,however,be said,in fairnessto ProfessorPrice, that the word "socialism,"whatever be itsmeaning or content, was often found in the speeches and writings ofdifferent eaders since the beginning of the 30's. It was M. N. Roy who,though not a Congressman, eemed to have firstintroduced,as he himselfclaimedonce, the Marxianlanguageand (probably) thought (too) in theindependencemovement,while revolutionariesike JayaprakashNarayan,RammanoharLohia,and Asoka Mehtabelonged to the CongressSocialistgroup (set up in 1934) within the CongressParty tself.JawaharlalNehru did not belong to this group; nor was he an ardentGandhianor even a Royist. He seemedto be an amalgamof all thoughtprocessesbut was still regardedas a "socialist"who rejectedproletarianrevolutionandbelievedin democraticdeals,mixed economy,cooperatives,and a gradualextensionof the public sector. On these points therewerefew differences, xceptof degree,betweenhim and other "socialists." TheIndustrialPolicy Resolutionof 1948 does not, therefore,seem to be any

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On "Ideologyand Indian Planning" (Comment) 215other than a naturalconsequence,rather than something "devised," asProfessorPricewould have us believe, by the CongressParty,then facing"therealityof power." After all, with whom should the partydevisesucha "compromise"n termsof a resolution? Surelynot with the SocialistParty,which did not agreewith the Congresson vital policy matters,butwhich was politicallynot powerful! Even the IndustrialPolicy Resolu-tion of 1956 does not appearto be a compromise: t was at best a con-cretizationof one aspectof the Avadi Resolution(1954) of the "Socialistpatternof society"that threatened he very existenceof the PrajaSocialistPartyand the CommunistPartyof India.

IIPROFESSORRICE MAY BE FORGIVENfor not giving these details,but oneis somewhatpuzzledto knowthatthe Indianelite and intellectualsbelievedin a concreterealizationof socialismonly via an ideology. One is not in-clined to believe that there was, or even is, only one ideology in Indianplanning, unless one defines clearly what "ideology" and "planning"mean. The fact that many controversiesexist on different aspects ofIndian plans or planning policies goes to prove that different ideas heldby differentmen,agencies,andgovernmentorganscannotbe easily broughttogether under a convenient label of ideology. Also there is the un-deniablefact that in the planningprocess, representatives f the businesscommunityare consultedbeforefixingup the physicaland financialtargetsin the privatesector. Therearealso reportsof workinggroupson privateenterprisebeforethe PlanningCommission or final determination f plantargets. It is unfortunate hat ProfessorPricewas unawareof this partofthe PlanningCommission'sactivity,as his footnote 50 of the articletendsto show.1 Moreover, t is difficult o prove that the governmentbureau-cracyviews the private sector "with suspicion and hostility," especiallyowing to the fact that most of the bureaucrats end to work for privateenterprisesaftertheir retirement rom governmentservice.Professor Price views the Mahalanobismodel as ideological,partlybe-cause the proportionof investment n capitalgoods, X,, is fixed arbitrarilyas a causatoryactor of growth, and also becauseof the socialisticaim ofeconomic independence from foreign imports of capital goods. Heshows the technicalflaws of the model by referringto Komiya'sarticle.Perhapsone could also add the commentson the model by A. K. Sen, S.Chakravarthy,. Tsuru,and a host of others. But none of the criticscon-

1 It may be useful to note that Mr. G. L. Mehta, who was a member of the PlanningCommission n the early fifties, is a prominentbusinessman-industrialist.



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The AmericanJournalof Economicsand Sociologycern themselvesaboutthe relativesize of the publicvis-d-visprivatesectors.It is no use saying simply that the model is inspiredby Soviet planningwithoutshowingclearlythe points of similarity.In this contextone wishes thatProfessorPricehad examinedthe logicalpremisesof the fundamentalassumptionsof the Mahalanobismodel andhad inquired into such importantfacts as the marketablesurpluses,thestock of capital,the levels of per capitaconsumption,he foreign exchangereserves,and the marginalpropensities o consume,as they existed at thebeginning of the Second Five Year Plan. Such an effort would havepointed out the extent of realism in the model, and probablyalso theideological moorings, if any. To cite the achievementsof the decade1956-66 to provethe ideologicalbasisof the plans is to take shelter underthe "hindsight"of history,which indeed is not a convincingthing to do.Also, it is difficult o prove the ideologicalbasismerely by sayingthat theextensionof the public sector would mean slow growth rates, stifling ofprivateenterprise,and curbinginnovation,experimentation, nd imagina-tion. The need of the hourdoes not seemto lie in experimentationwhichwould often prove to be costly, as the Indian importsubstitution chemesshow. It is also unlikelythat, at the presentlevels of Indian investmentand capitalstock,the privatesector would be able to experimentand in-novate,so as to bring about Wallichian"derived"development.

IIIIT WOULDBE USEFUL o ask at this juncture whether there should not beany ideology in developmentplanning. ProfessorPriceseems to say thatit should be weeded out, surelyin the case of India. But he does notstop here;he would go furtherto suggest encouragemento privateenter-prise as the only way to raise the Indian growth rates. One wonderswhetherthis solutionwill not be a part of an ideology.ProfessorPrice's treatmentof the Hindu characterand values, basedlargelyon the pessimisticaccountsof N. V. Sovani and D. Narain, doesnot appearto be relevantto the subjectin question. One does not findit happyto mix up "ideology,"Hindu values and character,n an analysisof the developmentaldesign of Indianplans, particularlyhe Secondandthe Third Plans, althoughProfessorPrice believed that accordingto theCongress eadership,a meaningfulrelationshipexists betweena "socialistpatternof society"and Hindu philosophy. It is doubtful if any attempthas been made in this direction in a concrete manner by any of theCongress eaders,eitherof the pastor of the present.University of Bombay,Bombay,India

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