This ‘favourable food and foreign exchange situation’ was a gift from the previous Government. Do not forget this. If at all you are honest to yourselves, you must say that. This was the gift from the previous Government. Do not forget this. You were not given this Government only with this empty chair, it was given with a big stock of food and very big treasury of foreign exchange. Do not forget that. Now you are basing your basic strategy, the strategy of your fiscal policies on these two important factors. You forget about it and here you say that, when you came to power, there was nothing here but actue unemployment and so on.
Talking about unemployment, I was making this point, Morarjibhai, I must tell you very honestly - in this campaign, I was making this criticism of your Government publicly, and I would like to make it here because sometimes election Speeches outside are forgotten. This was a very severe criticism that I was making. This Government’s claim is that they are rural-biased, and that they are very much worried about rural employment, rural investment, and so on and so forth; for the first time in the history of this century, this Government is doing something good for the rural areas so far they were neglected.. This is the pathetic tale that they are trying to tell us. My criticism was this. If at all you want to do something about rural areas, according to me, the fundamental problems of India are three. One is poverty, another is inequality - both social and economic, and third is, possibilities and efforts for modernising our manpower with the help of science and technology. These are the basic, fundamental problems of this country. A Government which has no basic policies about these fundamental issues, regarding these three basic issues including untouchability has no moral right to govern this country. Only that Government has a right to govern this country, which has got something very fundamental to give, as a matter of policy, for administration and for policy making. They alone can have the right to govern.
Now, what you done for the rural areas? Talking about unemployment and poverty and merely telling us that you have provided additional Rs. 400 crores more for agriculture - is that enough? Some pilot scheme has been sanctioned and Rs. 24 crores have been symbolically provided is that enough?
I come from a state where they had said that they want to give a guarantee to work to the unemployed in the rural areas. We merely give to the people the right to vote. That is not enough. That way democracy is incomplete. Along with the right to vote, if you give them the right to work, then alone will democracy be complete. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the rural areas who are willing to work. They have two hands to work with, but they have no work. I think they have got a right to ask for work and if you do not give them work, it is your duty to give them two meals a day.
