The reconciliation of these three power centres so that all of them work towards public welfare is one of the problems that will increasingly demand our attention. The cooperators cannot exploit this power position for their exclusive benefit, because as participants in a movement which is based on the ideal of public welfare, they cannot ignore their social responsibility. In the ideal form, a cooperative movement must ultimately succeed in breaking the monopoly of those in whom economic and social power is concentrated. But there is also a live danger that, divorced of true democratic ideals and principles, the cooperatives themselves would become the points of concentration of economic and social power which will give them tremendous potential for interfering in the political life in the area under their jurisdiction. Such a state of affairs would simply mean the replacement of individual concentration of power by concentration in the cooperatives. The cooperatives, in such an eventuality, would themselves become vested interests, hot beds of intrigue and politics. Instead of subserving the cause of public welfare and economic democracy, they would thwart our efforts in that direction.
These are some of the problems that will demand our constant attention in the years to come. These problems are by no means insoluble. Success always creates new problems. These are problems of growth and must be viewed as such. Cooperative movement has taken firm roots in the Indian soil and its success in States like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh should be a beacon light for others to emulate. The present attitude of apathy and reserve exhibited by some of the intellectuals of the country is bound to undergo a change as the movement grows. which would inject into the movement a new outlook and a greater degree of enlightened idealism. With such a feeling of involvement, I have no doubt the movement will achieve breakthrough in new directions.
