What are the economic challenges? The basic economic challenge before our country is the challenge of growth. We fought the British rule not merely to change the form of government but really to seize an opportunity to change ourselves. The British rulers came here because they were stronger and more disciplined people, and what counted most was that they had a superior technology. So, really speaking, when we were trying to throw out the Britishers, our idea was that, with the help of our own rule, we should change ourselves, our own life, our way of thinking, and achieve a modern and technically advanced civilization. When I say this, please do not misunderstand me. I am not making any suggestion that our civilization of the ancient times was inferior.
Naturally, the minimum that we expect to achieve is to satisfy the primary needs of the people like food, clothing, shelter, education and health. This basic task for which we fought the Britishers still remains unfulfilled. After attaining independence and forming a National Government, we seem to have succeeded in evolving a formula for ourselves, which is to leave everything to the Government and to believe that this agency would do everything for us. But certainly we cannot achieve progress in this way. Even to achieve the minimum programme, the energy of the entire nation has to be channelised. It is not enough that I draw up a certain plan and put a target before myself and ask some administrative machinery to work it out. Little is going to be achieved that way. There has to be a basic change in our methods of production and in our way of thinking and approach. without which the transformation cannot come about. To achieve economic objectives, it is not enough that we run the Government in a particular way, wedded to a certain type of programme. What is urgently needed is a change in the attitude of our entire people. Whether our younger people are aware of this is really the major challenge in the economic field as far as I see it. What are the challenges in the social field? I must say, we are as orthodox a country today as we were hundred years before. We are still divided on the basis of castes, sub-castes, religions, regions, languages and dialects and what not. These divisive forces, which were really responsible for keeping India depressed and suppressed for a long time in its history, are not only at work but possibly are increasing in intensity and size. This is one of the greatest challenges to the younger people.
