Science-based growth part of Netaji’s vision

Dinesh C. Sharma

Science Commentator

THE year-long celebration to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has begun with the unveiling of a ‘hologram statue’ of him under the colonial-era canopy near the India Gate in New Delhi. A 28-ft-tall three-dimensional image of Netaji is being projected on a near-transparent holographic screen to create a visual effect of a statue, till the one cast in stone gets ready and is installed. However, not far from this holographic tribute to the national hero stands a living monument signifying his biggest contribution to free India — the now-defunct Planning Commission. It is ironic that while technology is being used to perpetuate Netaji's memory, his ideas of economic planning based on science and technology, industrialisation and cooperative federalism have been quietly buried under the new edifice of the National Institute of Transforming India (NITI) Aayog.

During Netaji’s birth centenary year (1997), the Planning Commission published a booklet titled ‘Subhas Chandra Bose: Pioneer of Indian Planning’. Madhu Dandavate, who was the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, wrote that Netaji’s thoughts on economic planning were still relevant and that ‘much of what he had advocated was still to be translated into reality’. For instance, Netaji had advocated a strong Central government for rapid economic growth powered through industrialisation but by affording provinces ‘a large measure of autonomy’. The Netaji centenary coincided with the formulation process of the Ninth Five Year Plan, for which the United Front government held consultations with state governments and also with Panchayati Raj Institutions and civil society. Twenty-five years later, as we celebrate another landmark anniversary of Netaji, we have neither any such pretension left nor the Planning Commission.

Netaji was not only a pioneer of economic planning but also a strong believer in the application of science and technology for development. Physicist Meghnad Saha was a senior of Bose at the Presidency College and the two remained in touch thereon. Their ideas on several issues converged as Bose entered active politics. Saha had advocated the need for national planning in the columns of his journal, Science and Culture. Bose, as the Congress president, piloted the idea of establishing the National Planning Committee (NPC) at the Haripura session of the Indian National Congress in 1938 and invited Saha to join the process. NPC, according to historian Robert S Anderson, was to be originally chaired by Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya who had already demonstrated the power of industrialisation through economic planning in Mysore. Saha then convinced Visvesvaraya not to accept the offer as the panel would otherwise be seen as an academic exercise within the Congress party, a section of which was opposed to heavy industries. Thus, Bose wrote to Nehru to head NPC for it to be a success.

Saha got Bose to commit to a greater role for science and scientists in national development in India of future. At a meeting of the Indian Science News Association which Saha had founded, he pointedly asked Bose if the Congress party was committed to promoting science-based industrialisation and to set up a National Research Council. ‘National reconstruction will be possible only with the aid of science and scientists,’ Bose assured. He also supported the idea of a research council to conduct research aimed at applying science and technology in the process of industrialisation.

It was at this meeting in August 1938 that Bose made this famous statement that India could not afford to wait for a slow industrial revolution like Britain but needed ‘a forced march as in Soviet Russia’. By this time, the NPC had already started guiding the Congress ministries in the provinces, and Bose declared that ‘when we have a national government for the whole country, one of the first things we will have to do is appoint a National Planning Commission’. Bose complimented Science and Culture for publishing articles on problems directly related to industrialisation. He wanted India’s industrial policy to focus on ‘mother industries’ like power, metal production, machine and tools manufacture, transport, and basic chemicals. Scientific industrial research, according to Bose, should be ‘free from government control of every kind’. Bose’s thoughts on promoting infrastructure industries and autonomy for scientific institutions remain relevant.

The working of NPC stands out as an example of a truly national venture in which leading scientists, technical experts, industrialists, officials of provincial governments all participated. It also included a representative of the All India Village Industries Association, to counter the view that NPC was advocating heavy industries at the cost of cottage industries. The NPC worked through 29 sub-committees on different sectors like energy, education, public finance, land policy, population, engineering industries, communications, transport, scientific instrumentation and so on. Another sub-panel was formed on ‘census and statistics’ to collate and provide data necessary for the planning exercise. Each sub-committee was given a deadline to complete the task, and periodic reviews were held at the NPC secretariat in Bombay, despite the exigencies of the ongoing freedom movement.

The NPC provided a broad outline as well as sector-specific strategies, identifying problem areas and possible solutions. For instance, it laid down that all ‘key industries’ such as defence must be state-owned, while public utilities could be owned by some organ of the state like a local board or public trust. The state ownership should be through an ‘autonomous pubic trust’ to ensure public ownership and control while avoiding inefficiencies associated with full state control. Key problem areas were identified in different sectors, like the need for developing indigenous drug industry and nitrogen fertilisers were emphasised by the sub-committee on chemical industries. The panel recommended setting up a National Chemical Laboratory. To tackle under-nutrition and malnutrition, the sub-committee on population suggested the formation of a Central Nutrition Board and regional boards attached to it, and propagation of modern birth control methods. Such ideas, along with the guiding principles laid in the NPC report, formed the starting point of the Planning Commission in free India.

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