Some aspects of socio-economic planning

To establish a well-built social order in any country, three fundamental factors are a must. The first is discipline. Patainjali started his Yoga Sutra with the sloka: ”Atha yoganushashanam” "Henceforth, yoga is propounded as self-discipline."

Some countries of the world are fast losing their power because there is no discipline in individual or collective life. The second requisite factor is that there must be proper ideological inspiration for all-round individual and collective progress. Thirdly, there must be economic stability. The financial condition of a country's economy must be sound.

All-round progress and advancement also requires specific principles. When these principles are given a practical shape they become a fundamental part of the structure of society. development thus entails proper plans and programs. As factors vary from place to place, potentialities also vary. Factors like the fertility of the land, the availability of labor, etc. may be diametrically opposite in two different parts of a region, so if need be there should be separate planning for each part. For example, the eastern and southern districts of Bihar suffer from surplus and deficit labor problems. Hence it is nothing but foolishness to prescribe the same planning for both areas. Experiments in centralized planning have been made to try and solve such problems, but they have inevitably failed. Those powers which directly concern economic decentralization should be in the hands of the states or concerning lower level governments. If this is not done, it is not possible for them to materialize the economic programs that are vested in them by decentralizations.

The first step to decentralized planning is to make an economic plan according to the needs of the lowest level. Block-wise planning should be the most basic level of planning. The aim of the planners should be to make each block economically sound so that the entire unit will be self-sufficient. Only then will a country or federation become economically strong and developed in the real sense. This approach to planning is the special, unique feature of Prout’s economic decentralization.

The question is, how can decentralization be implemented? What exactly will be the procedure or basis for creating socio- economic units? According to Prout self-sufficient zones or units should be established throughout the world. These units should be formed on the basis of the following factors--same economic problems, uniform economic potentiality, ethnic similarity, same sentimental legacy, and similar geographical features. Based on these factors, all of India and the entire world can be reorganized into units. These units would not merely be a geographical areas but areas. The basic consideration is social, cultural and economic and not religious or linguistic. This concept of establishing strong, self-sufficient units is an important aspect of applied Prout.

The justification for establishing units throughout the world lies in the fact that any attempt to develop an area economically must start at the grass roots level. That is, the direction of economic development should be from the bottom to the top, not from the top to the bottom. The latter approach is impractical and a utopian myth. In India so far groups have been estab lished. In addition many groups are spread all over the world. In most cases each group would form one unit, but in some cases more than one group may form one unit. These groups represent a collection of human beings who want to move together. All the people in these groups are our brothers and sisters. Such groupifications can never be ultravires to humanity. Whenever you have to fight against inhuman forces, all the groups of the world are one. And in this fight you must fight for the oppressed and depressed people of the globe.

Some vested interests may try and brand Prout’s applied approach as parochial, but is this justified? The three bases of Prout’s groups are cultural, social and economic. Culture denotes all sorts of human expressions. The best possible means of communicating these human expressions is through one's mother tongue as this is most natural. If people's natural expression through their mother tongue is hampered, then inferiority complexes will grow in their minds. This will encourage a defeatist mentality, which ultimately leads to psycho-economic exploitation. A conspiracy of exploitation is the main reason behind the policy of imposing Hindi all over India. Hindi is not the natural language of the people in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, etc. There are many local dialects in these regions, which need immediate encouragement. To utilize the sentimental legacy of the people, people must raise their consciousness, know who their exploiters are, expose psycho-economic exploitation and become infused with fighting spirit. While you should encourage the use of all tongues, this does not imply opposing the study of other languages. Language in itself is of secondary importance; of primary importance are the cultural and consequences of linguistic imperialism. A language usually changes every 1000 years and a script every 2000 years. There was no script in the time of the Vedas. The composition of the Rg Veda started 15,000 years ago and ended 5,000 years ago, thus the entire composition was done over 10,000 years. In those days people used to write on the skin of sheep. Later people started to write on papyrus, and still later papyrus became paper. Bangla was written with wooden pens and Oriya with iron pens. To save the paper from being cut by the iron pens, Oriya letters became round.

The seed of expression of all languages is the same. Geo-racial differences were responsible for the emergence of the different races. The different races have developed numerous languages. The four races in the world are the Austrics who originated from south Asia, the Negroids who originated from Africa, the Mongoloids who originated from Mongolia, and the Aryans who originated from central Asia. The original home of the Aryans was south Russia, east of the Ural Mountains, now known as the Caucasus. The Muslim land of the U.S.S.R. includes Uzbekistan, Tazakiestan, Azarbaizan, etc. Today Aryans can be divided into three groups--Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean. Nordic Aryans came from Scandinavian countries--they have red complex ions and golden hair. Alpine Aryans come from Germany and the surrounding area. They have a reddish-white complexion, blackish- blue hair and blue eyes. Mediterranean Aryans come from south Europe and have white complexions, black hair and black eyes. Geo-racial conditions may produce changes in the vocal chords and other centres or plexii. Consequently, the entire pronunciation and other items of language change. Hence, language alone is not a sound basis upon which to integrate society.

To ensure the development of a region, several points must be considered. The first concerns those problems arising from the present defective systems. For example, many people travel to other regions to find employment. There should be no need for people to leave their own area to find employment as there is enough scope for creating employment in every region. Furthermore, when people travel to other regions there is the unnecessary economic burden of maintaining two establishments. Secondly, to fulfill the mutual needs between regions, Prout encourages the barter system in preference to the export system. The export system ultimately becomes commercial and competitive and leads to exploitation. Thirdly, to ensure the development of each unit, the drainage of money from one region to another must be checked. If the drainage of money is not checked, the per capita income in a unit cannot increase. For this reason every group should demand the cent per cent utilization of state or central revenue raised in their area till the per capita income comes on par with the most developed area in the country. Stopping the drainage of money from a region is the most practical and courageous approach to uprooting exploitation. However, present leaders will never dare adopt this approach.

Another measure that Prout advocates is the abolition of income tax. If income tax is abolished and excise duty on excisable commodities is increased by only 10%, there will be no loss of government revenue. When there is no income tax, nobody will try to accumulate black money. All money will be white money and as a result there will be economic solidarity, an increase in trade and commerce, more investment, more employment and an improvement in the position of foreign revenue. Intellectuals should take up the demand for the abolition of income tax.

In addition there should be free education for all students up to the highest degree, guaranteed employment for all youth, irrigation facilities for all farmers, and cheap rations--that is, cheaper than the present ration rate for all essential commodities like rice, pulse, flour, sugar, vegetable oil and cooking oil--for all laborers. Prout’s fundamental policy is that it is against small states, as these become taxing and burdensome to the citizens.

Socio-economic units should demand separate development projects. In order to materialize this they may also demand separate allocation of resources in the budget. However, if any unit finds that obstacles are being created from some quarter in materializing its development projects, that unit will have no other alternative but to demand the formation of a separate state.

The size of Prout’s socio-economic units is ever-expanding. Smaller units will merge together to form bigger ones. A day may come when the entire South East Asia will become one unit. The following four factors provide the basis for socio-economic units to merge together in the future--diminishing economic disparity between units, the development of science and communications, administrative efficiency and socio-cultural mixing.

Thus, it is crystal clear that the applied side of Prout is based on humanistic patriotism and not geo-political patriotism like other theories and philosophies. While other theories only encourage enmity and rivalry, in Prout’s socio-economic groups all sit together and co-ordinate and co-operate with each other. Hence, Prout’s applied approach can never be justifiably branded as parochial.

Until now no serious effort has been made by the rulers of India for the economic development of the country, either in the pre-independence period or in the post-independence period. The post-independence period can be divided into three main phases--the Nehru era, the Gandhi era and the Janata government. All these three eras came within the jurisdiction of vaeshyan or capitalist rule, and they all had one thing in common--they had a soft state policy towards the capitalists. The Janata government represented a counter movement within the vaeshya age. It was neither a vipra or intellectual revolution nor a vipra counter- evolution, but simply a movement of vaeshyan mentality. To strengthen its position it tried to give the vaeshyas better scope to chew the bones and marrow of the s, ks’attriyas and vipras. As it was a counter movement it was short lived and brought revolution nearer. Hence, there was no economic development during that period. Consequently, there was no alter native but for Proutists to form socio-economic groups.

Some examples of how decentralization can benefit particular industries include the following. First, take the jute industry. In Bengal many jute factories were closed after the British left. This was a disaster for jute farmers as they were then at the mercy of the buyers because they had to sell their crops immedi ately. The main problem of the jute industry was to eliminate these middlemen. To salvage the jute industry, jute producers should establish producer cooperatives to manufacture and supply jute thread from new jute. Spinning mills should purchase jute thread directly from the jute producers and manufacture bags, coarse cloth, etc. for consumers’ cooperatives. Tobacco is grown in the north of India, processed in the south, and then taken back to the north. Farmers in the north should have the facilities to convert raw tobacco into chopped tobacco; that is, there is no need to send it to the south of India for processing. This will lead to more employment and a drop in price. The match industry was functioning successfully through co- operative production. However, the government undermined this as it came to the assistance of big manufacturers when they were being undersold.

The tea that is grown in south India should be replaced by rubber plantations. Although both require much rain, rubber is more useful and profitable than tea. A product should have both usefulness and a market.

In addition, hydroelectric plants should be built in north Bengal where there is much rain; pineapple leaf fibre can be used for the manufacture of cloth; limestone from Purulia can be used for making cement; stone chips from Bankura district can be used for roads; molasses and mung dal can be produced from Nadia district; abundant fish can be grown by developing aquaculture in Biirbhum district and sugar cane pulp can be used in the paper industry in west Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. [June 1979, Calcutta
Prout in a nutshell - 15]