down. They have a sense of mission, while Congress has fulfilled
its original mission and not yet found another. But the Com-
munists are a small minority and only by the complete failure
of the Nehru-Congress régime can they come to power.

If India is to avoid going back to the Middle Ages under
the banner of Gandhiism, or forward to 1984 with the Com-
munists, the present policies of the "westernizers" will have to
pay off soon. This means that the second Five-Year Plan must
make a noticeable impact on the standard of living of the people
At the moment that seems unlikely.

The rather modest first Five-Year Plan that ended in 1955
was so successful that Congress political leaders and economic
experts were forced to promise something bigger and better for
the second plan--which was to be announced shortly before
the elections. As a result, an ambitious plan was announced with
a very considerable financial gap to be filled by "loans and credits
from abroad."

For a time, in 1957, it looked as though these loans and
credits were not going to materialize and that the plan would
collapse. In desperation, the then Finance Minister T. T.
Krishnamachari set off on a tour of the Western capitals, while
lesser figures went to Moscow. A substantial loan was arranged
in Washington, and Russia made a well-publicized agreement to
extend its existing credits at low interest rates.

The plan has been saved from disaster; but it is still cut to
the bone, and India's progress has been sadly slowed down.
Indeed, the . . . cuts announced at the beginning of May {1958}
were so severe that their full impact has been concealed from
the Indian people for fear of a serious drop in morale. . . .

It takes capital to industrialize a country, and in a backward
country like India capital can only be raised by forced loans
from the masses (which is what, in differing ways, Russia did
and China is now doing) or by borrowing abroad. If the Indian
government were to raise money by squeezing its desperately
poor peasants, it could not remain a democracy. The price of

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