The Political Future of India

by Lala Lajpat Rai

The tariff question was excluded from the scope of the Commission’s inquiries, though it was expressed that the “building up of industries where the capital, control and management should be in the hands of the Indians” was the “special object” which the government had in view. The Government spokesman in the meeting of the Legislative Council at which the appointment of the Commission was announced further emphasized “that it was of immense importance, alike to India herself and to the Empire as a whole, that Indians should take a larger share in the industrial development of their country.” He “deprecated the taking of any steps, if it might merely mean that the manufacturer who now competes with you from a distance would transfer his activities to India and compete with you within your boundaries.”

The Commission has now submitted its report which has been published as a Parliamentary blue book in a bulky volume of about 500 pages including a separate lengthy note by one of the leading Indian members of the Commission. The note is, in our judgment, very valuable, as it gives the Indian point of view of the industrial problem in such a lucid and exhaustive way as to leave no room for doubt as to what articulate India thinks in the matter. The note does not express only the personal opinion of the author but the considered views of the Indian Nationalist Party.

Both the report and the note have been the source of much personal gratification to us as they corroborate and confirm to an extraordinary extent what the author said in his book “England’s Debt to India,” though the report is by no means free from fallacies and one-sided statements of fact and opinions.

II

In the words of the summary prefixed to the report:

“The first chapters of the report deal with India as an industrial country, her present position, and her potentialities. They show how little the march of modern industry has affected the great bulk of the Indian population, which remains engrossed in agriculture, winning a bare subsistence from the soil by antiquated methods of cultivation. Such changes as have been wrought in rural areas are the effects of economic rather than of industrial evolution. In certain centers the progress of Western industrial methods is discernible; and a number of these are described in order to present a picture of the conditions under which industries are carried on, attention being drawn to the shortage and to the general inefficiency of Indian labor and to the lack of an indigenous supervising agency. Proposals are made for the better exploitation of the forests and fisheries. In discussing the industrial deficiencies of India, the report shows how unequal the industrial development of our industries has been. Money has been invested in commerce rather than industries, and only those industries have been taken up which appeared to offer safe and easy profits. Previous to the war, too ready reliance was placed on imports from overseas, and this habit was fostered by the Government practice of purchasing stores in England. India produces nearly all the raw materials necessary for the requirements of a modern community; but is unable to manufacture many of the articles and materials necessary alike in times of peace and war. For instance, her great textile industries are dependent upon supplies of imported machinery and would have to shut down if command of the seas were lost. It is vital, therefore, for the Government to ensure the establishment of those industries in India whose absence exposes us to grave danger in event of war. The report advocates the introduction of modern methods of agriculture and in particular of labor-saving devices. Greater efficiency in cultivation, and in the preparation of produce for the market would follow; labor now wastefully employed would be set free for industries and the establishment of shops for the manufacture and repair of machinery would lead to the growth of a huge engineering industry.”

The summarized statements will be made more clear by the following extracts from Chapter I on rural India.

“Famine connotes not so much a scarcity or entire absence of food as high prices and a lack of employment in the affected areas.... The capital in the hands of the country traders has proved insufficient to finance the ordinary movements of crops and the seasonal calls for accommodations from the main financial centers are constantly increasing. This lack of available capital is one cause of the high rates that the ryot has to pay for the ready money which he needs to buy seed and to meet the expenses of cultivation. On the other hand, money is largely invested in the purchase of landed property, the price of which has risen to very high figures in many parts of the country.... But the no less urgent necessity of relieving the ryot from the enormous load of debt with which he has been burdened by the dearness of agricultural capital, the necessity of meeting periodic demands for rent and his social habits, has hitherto been met only to a very small extent by co-operative organization. The farmer, owing partly to poverty and partly to the extreme sub-division of the land, is very often a producer on so small a scale that it is practically impossible for him to take his crops to the larger markets where he can sell at current rates to the agents of the bigger firms.... A better market system, co-operative selling, and education are the promising remedies.”

Coming to the industrial centers of the country apart from the rural areas, the report says: