This brings us to the second element in our over-all political strategy. The seventies must witness a purposeful effort to realise the ideal of social and economic justice incorporated in the Constitution. In this field a new strategy is called for. We have seen that even though the Five Year Plans and the social and economic legislation during the fifties and the sixties contained certain safeguards against unchecked concentration of economic power in the hands of a very small minority and a certain degree of protection to the vulnerable sections of the national community, in practice the legislation as also the process of development have, in fact, emphasised growth at the expense of social justice. It is true that economic growth implies, in an underdeveloped country, a postponement of current satisfactions for future prosperity. It is also true that the effort for national economic development needs a massive mobilisation of internal resources from all sections of the people. Any attempt to maximise a more even distribution of income without tapping the maximum possible saving level of the community will lead us nowhere. But a stage has come when the hardships involved in the process of development have to be shared, as far as possible, by all sections of the community. If current consumption has to be postponed, then it must not only be for those whose consumption levels are already the lowest in the world. A great deal is still possible to increase the area and the range of public services which benefit all and to restrict the area of private affluence. For example, education, health, transport and cultural services can be increased manifold so as to reach the neglected humanity in India, even if this means a drastic reduction in the luxury consumption of the economically better off classes. In other words, a sound incomes policy related to social objectives is imperative, if we want to combine rapid growth with a new deal for those who have suffered long and without hope.
The elements of the new strategy are already visible in the bold move to nationalise the banks. This, however, can only be a beginning towards a faster march in the right direction. It has to be followed up by increasing attention to the development of the industrially backward areas, to the needs of millions of under-protected tenants in agriculture, to the encouragement of small industry with a modern technological bias, preferably in the cooperative sector, and to the effort to tackle the problem of unemployment and disguised unemployment. Productivity in agriculture has to be increased by bringing the vast majority of tenants and small land holders into the technological revolution which has so far touched only a small fraction of the village population. It is possible to rally the nation for a supreme effort to break the vicious circle of low savings, low productivity and low income if we can put into action the bold strategy of socialist reconstruction.
