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Our two main problems: An essay by Lal Bahadur Shastri, from the HT archives

ByLal Bahadur Shastri
Jan 25, 2025 12:13 AM IST

HT's Republic@75 special: ‘We need to grow our own food and make our own textiles. It will take discipline and unity to pull this off,’ Shastri writes, in 1951.

During the three years of our independence, the country has made progress in many directions and things have been done which, in the pre-independence days, were outside even the realm of schemes or plans.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at a refugee camp in Srinagar in 1948. ‘Khadi should be given the utmost encouragement and the people encouraged to use it even if it is somewhat costly. Government should also patronise it fully,’ Shastri writes. (HT Archives) PREMIUM
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at a refugee camp in Srinagar in 1948. ‘Khadi should be given the utmost encouragement and the people encouraged to use it even if it is somewhat costly. Government should also patronise it fully,’ Shastri writes. (HT Archives)

The expansion of education and medical facilities, building new plants, dams, irrigation canals and roads, the opening of scientific laboratories and virgin soil brought under cultivation, these are some of the achievements of this period, besides radical social legislation by the central and the state governments giving equal rights to all citizens with no distinction between men and women, high and low, rich and poor.

The Constitution has further set before the nation an ideal of civil liberty and of equal opportunity to all. The achievement of these objectives is the most difficult task that has ever devolved on any country in the very early stages of its freedom, but we are struggling on in pursuit of a great ideal for which we have lived and fought for so long. Gandhiji, through the Congress organization under whose auspices we have grown up, set that ideal before us. We are yet very far indeed from realizing it; we have made only a humble beginning. We might, as is only natural, make mistakes and have to retrace our steps if the conditions so demand in order to serve better.

Even if we fail or falter, the laudable ideal will ever remain before us as a beacon light to lead us to individual, social, political — and may I also add — spiritual progress.

The problem of food

But independence has brought in its wake several problems which weigh heavily upon us. These are many, and they deserve our consideration but, in this article, I shall deal with only two — food and cloth. Their production, if tackled properly, may well pave the way for further progress.

Serious thought has been given to the first, but the latter has not received the same attention. I do not propose to elaborate on the various aspects of the problem of food production, but I would like to emphasize here how we should get on with the actual work to achieve a definite result within a prescribed time.

‘If we want to make people work-minded, engender a creative spirit and teach them the dignity of labour, the easiest solution is to go in for small-scale industries. Practically everyone will have something to do and something to build which will result in bringing about a healthy atmosphere in society,’ Shastri writes.
‘If we want to make people work-minded, engender a creative spirit and teach them the dignity of labour, the easiest solution is to go in for small-scale industries. Practically everyone will have something to do and something to build which will result in bringing about a healthy atmosphere in society,’ Shastri writes.

We have got sound schemes and ample funds placed at the disposal of the departments concerned. Top priority has also been given to it. But how many of us have first-hand knowledge of the work being carried on in the village and the fields? Officers at the top and even those below work on the basis of reports and not on what is actually happening in the fields.

Leaving aside the programme of work and what should be our target, let me enumerate below some of the essential points in regard to this problem:

(i) The productive capacity of the existing land under cultivation to increase; save crops from drought and damage as far as possible.

(ii) Culturable and virgin soil to be brought under cultivation.

(iii) Government to provide necessary means and resources as an aid to implement the above.

(iv) Cultivators to put their best on their own initiative without waiting for Government help. Each and every one to fulfil the task allotted to him howsoever limited his scope might be.

(v) Agency to supervise and execute the scheme.

A complete survey of each and every village should be the first and most essential part of our scheme. We should have a clear idea of the cultivated and uncultivated area, the virgin soil to be brought under cultivation, the number of wells, tube-wells, ponds, tanks, etc, crops and their produce per bigha or acre, the improvements required and what is possible for the villagers to do themselves and the kind and extent of Government aid that should be forthcoming.

Military precision

A detailed record of the progress of the work done should be maintained along with proper check and necessary supervision. The agriculture and the revenue departments, the panchayat, the SDM and the district magistrate, in so far as they are concerned, should have the plan of each village before them and see to its actual execution. If there is delay in the progress of work in any area, the SDM, the tehsildar and other persons concerned should be held responsible and should be asked to explain the causes of the delay.

Success and failure has to be keenly watched and it should be judged whether the progress is reasonable and reliable. There should be a persistent effort to see the materialization of the plan within a prescribed time. All this should be done with military precision. It is in that spirit that “Grow More Food” has to be worked.

An army of land workers should not remain merely a slogan. Every cultivator should be made to feel that he is a soldier of that army and should report at the village panchayat how he is faring with the work allotted to him. Let us create a sense of need and urgency in the minds of cultivators and other workers. Whatever effort is made and howsoever rapid our pace may be, the attainment of the target will take time. In the meantime our people should exercise great patience in awaiting results. They may have to carry on with coarse grains, vegetables or nuts etc and also with less food. It may come as a rude shock to the people but they should be taken into full confidence about it.

We must make ourselves self-supporting in cereals as it is a matter of shame to all of us not to be able to do so with the huge resources at our disposal. If we are in right earnest and prepared to work hard, we can succeed in reducing our imports of foodgrains considerably by the end of next year.

A cartoon from 1964, by HT cartoonist Rajinder Puri. (HT Archives)
A cartoon from 1964, by HT cartoonist Rajinder Puri. (HT Archives)

Equally important

Let us now consider the question of cloth. It may not be considered as important as food; yet it will be unwise to minimise its importance. It is needless to emphasize that if we can manage food and cloth for ourselves, there is bound to be economic stability. Mills must produce the quota allotted to them. If they do not co-operate, they should be dealt with firmly and, if necessary, new legislation enacted to deal with them. Labour will also have to bear its share of responsibility and strikes should be eliminated.

Khadi

It is common knowledge that the mills alone are not able to meet our full requirements. Therefore, the next but not the least important question is manufacture of hand-spun and hand-woven cloth. Khadi should be given the utmost encouragement and the people encouraged to use it even if it is somewhat costly. Government should also patronise it fully.

Khadi has great prospects if it receives due encouragement from the Government as well as the people. The Spinners’ Association is the only right agency through which this work should be expanded. They are the pioneers in this field and they will do it with a missionary zeal of their own. They should be made responsible for detailed planning of the work and its execution.

Government may, if it so desires, keep one or two liaison officers of high calibre to keep in touch with this non-official body and advise it. The spinning wheels and weaving looms are bound to improve in quality and produce more, once they are accepted as a major means of cloth production.

Capital is shy today and it is also not easy to get plants and machinery from abroad. In the circumstances it is advisable to get as much as possible from the existing mills and the balance we should secure through spinning wheels and looms.

We have a mixed economy today and it seems we have to get on in the same context for some time to come. A clear-cut demarcation and adoption of one of the two kinds of economies does not seem feasible at the present moment. It is time that we all understood this clearly. We have got a large population, of which a big percentage has no work or insufficient work. We can provide them with work in the smaller industries.

We should not simply try to copy the West as our conditions are different from them. Either we go in for rapid industrialization through State or private agency or, if that is not possible — and I fear it is not — we must try to speed up our production through small scale and village industries.

Small-scale industries

What has been stated above is mostly from a practical point of view but it should not be understood that theoretically there is no case for small-scale decentralized industries. The development of small-scale industries has a special role to play in big agricultural countries like India, especially if the country desires to work in a democratic set-up.

If we want to make people work-minded, engender a creative spirit and teach them the dignity of labour, the easiest solution is to go in for small-scale industries. Practically everyone will have something to do and something to build which will result in bringing about a healthy atmosphere in society with the minimum of rivalry and competition. It was a pivotal idea on which Gandhiji wanted to build the future India. Let us not forget that, both as an ideal and as a practical proposition.

The threat of a world war stares us in the face. It may or may not come but the present tension is bound to have its repercussions. There will be a tendency in various countries to keep in reserve agricultural products and other essential commodities for their needs and we might not be able to import in future as easily as we could do before.

We should thank ourselves that we are warned well in time and we should not lag behind. The threat of war comes as an additional impetus but war, or no war, we must produce enough of cereals and enough of cloth to feed and clothe our people.

[Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904-1966) was prime minister of India from 1964 to ’66. He also served as union minister for railways, home and external affairs, at different times. The article was first published on January 26, 1951]

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