POST-WAR DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC POWER IN INDIA 127
“ A Rot Has Set In ”
The result is that at the end of a decade we are left with a negative balance between population and production and a constant sqeezing of the standard of living. At every decade this negative balance between population and production is increasing in an alarming degree, leaving India with the inheritance of poverty, more poverty and chronic poverty. A rot has set in. This rot, I feel sure, is not going to be stopped by organizing agricultural exhibitions or animal shows or by propaganda in favour of better manuring. It can stop only when agriculture is made profitable. Nothing can open possibilities of making agriculture in India profitable except a serious drive in favour of industrialization. For it is industrialization alone which can drain away the excess of population which is exerting such enormous pressure on land into gainful occupations other than agriculture.
To sum up, our Reconstruction Committees are no doubt modelled, so far as intention and purpose is concerned, on the Reconstruction Committees which have come into existence in most European countries whose industrial organization has been destroyed by the Germans. The problems of reconstruction differ, and must differ from country to country. In some countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of reconditioning of rundown plant and machinery.
Nature Of Problem In India
In some countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of replacement of tools and plants which have been destroyed in the war. The problem of reconstruction in India must include consideration of all the questions with which other countries engaged in war are concerned.
At the same time we must not forget that the problem of reconstruction in India is essentially different from the problem of reconstruction in other countries. In other countries the problem of reconstruction is a problem of rehabilitation of Industry which has been in existence.
The problem of reconstruction in India, as I see it, is a problem mainly of the industrialization of India as distinguished from the rehabilitation of industry and industrialization but in the ultimate sense the removal of chronic poverty.