Science and scientific theories are applicable to the whole world. Its principles are universal. Is it true about economics also?. Perhaps no. Unlike science, the economy depends upon the natural sources, climatic condition, size of the country, the culture and belief, social fabric of the country etc. Prime facie the economic policy which is suitable for England is not suitable for China, South Africa, India because of several factors. For example, managing economy for a country having, by and large, homogeneous character of society or having a small size is easy while it is not so for a country having, by and large, heterogeneous character of society or having a very big size. Similarly, the economy which is applicable to a country having vast natural resources cannot be applied to a country having lacking such resources. For the aforesaid reasons, the western models of economy is not straightway applicable to India and this is the reason that we are among the countries having the most hungry people. I had read somewhere, the ratio of earning between the poor and rich was 1:100 when we had achieved independence which is now 1: 400. This is so because, we have now adopted capitalism. In capitalism, ‘Money begets money’ i.e ‘Rupaya Rupaye Ko Khinchata Hai’. In capitalism, power of labour is very low than the power of money. Assume there are two persons having identical IQ. One has a piece of land in metropolitan city and another a piece of land in a small town. Who will have more money if both sell the same? We know the one who has a piece of land in a metropolitan will have more money. Whose position is more secure? Who will be in a position to generate more money? The answers are obvious i.e the one who has a piece of land in the metropolitan city. What is the contribution of that person in generating so much wealth? Assume there are two persons having identical IQ. One has a piece of agricultural land in remote area which is far away from an industrialized locality. Another one has a piece of land near an industrialized locality. Both of them have no other source of income except the agricultural. Both of them grow the same crop and yield is also the same. The first one has no market whereas the other one has a market at his door step. Who will earn more money from the profession? Answer is obvious i.e the latter one. Is it not happening in our country. Has the economic system which is applicable to our country answer to this question? Given this economic system, will disparity in India vanish to a large extent? When we achieved independence, almost about 80% of population of our country used to live in village. Indeed, there were land for agriculture but there were no means to produce more and more crops. There was no electricity, no water, no seeds, no roads. The agriculture was wholly dependent on rain. Agriculture used to be affected sometimes from drought and almost every year by floods. Further, everyone in the village did not have land. The lands were in the hands of the few ones in the village. Rest of the rural folk was dependent on landlords as labour, artisan etc. I remember that the only other profession of the villages was to spin yarn on charkha and sell it to and purchase from Gandhi Ashram clothes. Almost every family in the village used to have Charkha. There were two types of Charkha-Gandhi Charkha & Amar Charkha. The women of the village used to spin yarn on these Charkha and the male used to bring the yarn to the Gandhi Ashram which were situated in the towns about three km away from the village. Thereby, men and women used to contribute to the economy of the village. There were also the artisans such as gold smiths, carpenter, shoemakers, potters etc. The value of the goods and service provided by these artisans was paid in the form of grains once a year. Besides, these artisans also used to roam from one field to another field a collect a part of the produce in the form of crop itself. Besides, they were also paid in cash for the services rendered by them during a family function held in the village. I remember that when the crops used to be good, the cultivators used to be more generous towards these artisans. Moreover, these artisans also used to get respect from the cultivators because for getting service the farmers used to have wait. During the peak time, these artisans used to be very busy and sometime they failed to cater the needs of the cultivators properly with the result that cultivation was adversely affected. Not only the cultivation of crops, yarn spinning or the professions adopted by the artisans, there were also other scope for expansion of service sectors in the village. There were the other fields of work which could have been promoted as cottage industry in order to cater the needs of the villagers and thereby to cater the needs of about 80% population of India. What the villagers most needed at that time. Beside other things, they needed foods, oils, clothes, Chullah, earthen pots, fuels, cot, agricultural equipments etc. These items could be produced in the villages themselves and could be traded among the villagers. To day we know that because of the multinational companies such as Samsung, LG, Ford Motors, Hundai etc, many vendors are flourishing. Similarly because of agriculture, several other cottage industry could have flourished. May be this way we could not have made billionaires in the village, we could not have produced a large number of middle class who has become the potential market for the whole world, but we would have certainly eradicated hunger from India. This could have been the most suitable economic policy for India.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:02:41 +0000
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