PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 847
account. We thought and we hoped that when this country became independent, that aspect of the matter would change, that the Government would not be merely a Government of an agency to collect taxes and a magistrate to punish people for wrongful action, that the Government would do something more, that the Government would assume the function which all civilised Governments have assumed in the 20th century. Sir, can anyone scanning the Budget which has been presented to this House say that they can find any trace of any other functions, which all modern civilised nations and States assume to themselves, reflected in the Budget of the Finance Minister ? I can find nothing. We are still repeating the old history of the British, namely, to collect taxes, to punish offenders. No provision is made for all the social benefits which are conferred upon the poorer and the lower classes in other countries in the world. I want to ask the Hon. the Finance Minister : “Can he promise us, as he had been promising in the case of the food subsidy, that we will be self-sufficient in food in 1952, if not in 1952 it shall come in 1956, if not in
1956 it shall come in the year 1960 ?” There is some hope, so long as there is a fixed day or a promised day of the arrival of the new regime. Can he tell us that we can tread upon the path foreign countries have been following so far as social services are concerned ? He has said none. The whole thing in the Budget, to put it in a nut-shell—it has been put, I know, by other speakers before me—the crux of the whole matter in this country is that the Army is eating up into the vitals of the funds that are necessary for the well-being of this country. We have, in a total Budget of Rs. 404 crores, a sum of nearly Rs. 200 crores spent on the Army. It is difficult to understand this position. Sir, when peace came, an order of demobolisation was passed. It was decided by the then British Government that the Army of India shall be reduced. What do we find ? We find that in the year 1947, the revenue of the Government of India was somewhere about Rs. 172 crores. I am speaking of the Budget for the 8 months that was then presented from August 1947 to April 1948. The Military Budget then was Rs. 90 crores. Our revenue today has grown to Rs. 404 crores, and our military expenditure has also grown