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The usual source why he resigned.

This is a series of interviews with experts on Asian affairs designed to

strengthen our understanding of Asian people and ideas. Your

most on this transcribed series is the noted author on the ward winning

broadcaster Lee Graham. Here now is Mrs. Graham.

India has been called many things and mostly complimentary. We think of

Mother India we think of eternal India. We think a beautiful India

but perhaps we don't think too much of India. The industrialized country

and that is an adjective which I think we can apply more and more to the country because its economy

is going in that direction. Is it going fast enough to suit the country. The

people in the government I don't know what are its hopes. I don't know but

I think these are questions we'd like answered on this program because many of us have a great

interest in this amazing country and so we have a guest who is absolutely right

for these questions I think. And he is this new job Mr.

Al who is the consul general of India in New York City. He's held his position

for almost a year and a half and he tells me that he likes it very much. He is also

the ambassador from his country to Costa Rica. And Mr. Hu is that

a little confusing to have to go between Costa Rica and the United

States. Keep your thoughts straight.

Not at all I find the most interesting contrast and

going again. When the life in New York gets a bit

too hectic to be able to seek refuge in the tranquility of Costa Rica

where the people are very friendly but the government is extremely

close and which is in addition a sort of an entree

into Central America. I find it a very very fascinating combination and I would

not really wish to have it any other way.

Yes I suppose there are elements in Costa Rica which are closer to India than

some of those that you find in the United States.

There is a great deal of interest in India both in the United States and in Costa Rica.

I would say that in point of information there is a great deal more in the United States

than there is in Costa Rica. But I found last year when I first

went to San Jose that the centenary of Martin

Gandhi's butt was being celebrated there on a very large scale.

Now taking into account the fact that we do not have a resident mission in Costa Rica

the fact that a number of people there could get together and were sufficiently interested in Mark my

Gandhi to be able to pool their resources and celebrate our centenary like

this on a large scale was very significant and it expressed

the amount of interest which there is in things Indian people

Indian in countries and Central America and Latin America.

Yes that may be surprising to some but of course Gandhi is a

man who is so global so international a man not only of last

century but the century that I think he could pull people together wherever they might live

to celebrate the fact that he once walked the earth. But would you say that

there are certain qualities in Costa Rica perhaps more serenity perhaps a closeness

to the soil some of these qualities which you find more Indian than what you find in the

United States.

See I would say that. These days one is getting so

used to things having to be propagated in order to get

known that to find there was a human being who without

any propaganda of this nature could become a household name in the

country's very far removed from his ruin by Costa Rica. It was a

remarkable achievement of Martin Gandhi. I think one of the

things which makes Costa Rica especially close to India is that

in Costa Rica it's one of these remarkable countries which has no

army. They have gone almost farther

in so far as nonviolence is concerned in service practice of nonviolence is concerned.

That they have dispensed with the use of an army only have our Civil

Guards. Not too many of them. And when you visit San

Jose for the first time one of the things which impresses you is the remarkable

absence of any army or any Civil Guards people on the

streets. It's very peaceful very friendly and a beautiful country.

When you run you feel refreshed That's a contrast to most countries like India I've got very fond of

Costa Rica.

Yes Mr. In your country there has been a great deal of economic

progress and but many of us I think are not too well and fond of

this progress whether it be growth in the population

manages not to interfere with the progress or whether the progress is held down by

you know the number of people that have to constantly be fed.

So I'm delighted you asked that question because

since my arrival in this country I have been feeling a little concerned

that the picture of the economic progress which India is making

has tended to get a bit out of focus. I think if you look

back to the 50s and the early 60s

India was always regarded as a developing country

which was using its resources in a purposeful meaningful way

in order to create a better life for our people.

Unfortunately because of too many difficult droughts years from

1965 to 1967 which led to

a very sharp fall in the production of food grains in India

and which necessitated massive imports of food grains on the United

States. The people in the United States I mean the ordinary

people not the experts the experts know the picture very much better than that

the ordinary people got the impression that the Indian economy was becoming

progressively more and viable that it would need larger and

larger injections of foreign aid in the way of food grains and

otherwise to keep it going. Now I would like

to say prophetically that nothing could really be farther from the truth.

Admittedly the difficulties which we faced in those two years are

very serious indeed. But we were having drought

of unprecedented proportions nature was being as cruel

as you can and people who live in countries like India or China

sometimes see nature raw in Tooth and Claw.

But what has happened since then is that the

adoption of a new agricultural policy based

on use of new medical seeds as they are called of

wheat particularly And now of rice

has brought about a remarkable agricultural transformation in India

from a food level production of around seven to nine million tonnes

in one thousand sixty eight.

We had a record harvest of 95 million tonnes

in the following year. The monsoon was not as kind as it could been the previous year

but because of the concentrated inputs under the new agricultural policy

which meant use of the medical seeds use of fertilizers

pesticides. We were able to sustain the production

of food grains at around 96 million tonnes and this

year we are expecting to cross the hundred million mark. The difference in

the case of India is that we can go in for more intensive agriculture far

more easily than you can because we have a much larger population

in proportion to the land which is available in India.

And also you don't pay people not to grow things as we often do here.

We have not yet reached that happy States providing people not to grow.

Well it may sound happy but it sounds like a quite illogical and

almost ridiculous statement.

See the difference between your affluence and relative poverty is so great

that it will take us quite some time before we can reach a stage when we pay

people for not producing our problems at the moment are far more basic. We need more food

grains. We need more industrial products and we need more of everything that our people can produce.

When I just say this as a philosophical aside I dont think anyone should ever be paid

not to work or not produce something because somebody somewhere can use it.

But not being an official. Thats the last one hundred say about.

A large part of that a large part of your population isn't agriculture

because you must feed yourselves as much as you can without spending a lot

of money on importing foodstuffs. What would you say that you are able to

release some of the people who have been in farming now to other occupations.

See the proportion of people in India who are working on the land

is still very very high in comparison to the United States.

We have about 70 percent of our people who are dependent on agriculture.

In your case I think the corresponding proportion is somewhere in the region of 10 or 12 percent.

So the really the nature of the problems that we are facing are very very different.

And in the big cities. The situation is not that there

isn't a shortage of labor or that agriculture is not releasing enough people

but it is a question of look eating dog opportunities. Creating work

for the large number of people who are coming over who are moving from the

countryside to the towns. Now you asked me earlier on about what we

have done in the field of industry. I did not answer this

question directly at the time mainly because it was anxious to

try to restore the perspective on the economic advance that is

taking place in India and I would like at this stage to move

over if I may to this question of the Industrial Development which has

taken place in India. Now the development has really been in many

ways quite remarkable. Our industrial

production today is more than three times the industrial

production in India.

When we became independent in one hundred forty seven. And

the difference is not many in terms of quantity. It is

also a qualitative difference because at the

time we had basically three or four major

industries due to manufacture's centered

around Calcutta D. In

S-M in West Bengal and in the south

cotton Dixville industry which was located in Bombay and with

about area and a relatively small sugar industry and a

relatively small steel industry.

The production of steel in India for example had hovered around the figure of one

million tonnes for something like 30 years. If you were a

student of economics who has to remember a lot of statistics

this could be very easy because you do not have to vary from year to year

about how the industrial production is moving. It was relatively static

the indices were about the same.

But while it might be easy on the memory of words student of economics

it was very very harmful to the country which needed more of steel which

needed more of machinery and equipment and which needed more production.

What we have succeeded in doing after 1947 is that we have got the industry

moving from this period of relative stagnation over a long period

of time into a period of fairly rapid growth the rate of growth

of industry has been on an average around 8 percent a year. There are

years which have been better. There are years which would have been relatively less good. But on an

average we've succeeded in maintaining a rate of industrial advance of 8 percent

leading to a tripling in the industrial production in twenty one twenty two years.

Now when I talked about the qualitative change which has come about

what I had in mind was that today we are not only producing all the consumer goods or

almost all the consumer goods that we need in India but we are also producing

machines which can make more machines. In other words the bulk of the

machinery and equipment that India requires even in some sophisticated sectors

is being produced entirely in India. Our steel production today

is about six and a half seven million tons compared with a little over 1 million

duns. When we became independent we had in fact significant

exporters of steel to countries in our neighborhood countries and Southeast Asia

countries in the Middle East. And last year we even exported some steel

to the United States of America. We had exporters

in such sophisticated feels as transmission line equipment for transmission of

electricity. Now today the two major exporters of

transmission line equipment strangely enough or India and

Italy every time there's a large tender for installation of

transmission line equipment in a country the do countries which are competing against each other

or India and Italy in some cases the wind in other cases we do

not affected.

Which was known as being somewhat backwards somewhat behindhand

in industrial development can step into the field of sophisticated exports

of machinery equipment transmission line towers and so on is

an indication of the remarkable transformation that has taken place.

I never like to think of India as a country that was backward at any time but

always as a country that was different and that had a different concept of the

world. And then finally saw that perhaps this current civilization is one that

has to be joined and then decided to do it and is doing it very well.

That you export as much as you do however I think must surprise many people.

Your exports have gone up.

What would you say to what extent lost exports went

up by a relatively modest proportion to 4 percent

the year before they recorded an advance of 10 percent.

How about your home industries. Are you I notice one often sees in beautiful boxes

and silks and things made by skilled artisans of

India.

Are you exporting these products as well so we are exporting more and more of these

just to the United States and to Canada to Western Europe and other affluent

countries. In addition we are producing a lot of these for the home market also

because these things of beauty are very much a part of our life. And one of the reasons

which enables us to keep these industries going is the fact that skilled

labor in India is still relatively speaking inexpensive.

Because if we were to have the sort of labor wages that you have here it becomes

so prohibitively expensive to produce these items and market them

that we would just have to go out of this particular business. But because of the fact that we have a

tremendous amount of skilled manpower available who have inherited the skills generation to

generation coming down from the grandfather to the Father from the father to the son

that we have been able to keep these up.

But we hope that Hannah Graham Yeah lose them it would be a tragedy if these two

disappear. It's so important to keep them in character as you well know.

I entirely agree because you replaced an important part in life then it would be a pity I mean a

tractor is useful but you would want it around the house and not around the house.

But on the come on the farms we would love them.

Yet Mr. White do you see as your country's greatest needs then

industrially and economically speaking. Is it aggression

of getting more dollars or more currency into the country. A question of

retraining some of your people what you see as your main need.

See I would say that what we have to do is in the

first place continue and intensify

of a new agricultural policy with concentrated attention

on the agricultural sector because there's no getting away from the fact

that this is the backbone of our economy. If agriculture is doing well

the industry will do well almost automatically because it is the farmers who provide

the market for the products of our industry. So this policy

must be continued and must be strengthened. On the side of

industry I think we need to resume the investments

in industry which were taking place till

the drought years of 1965 67 interrupted the process to some extent.

We are finding that in sectors where until a short while ago we had

surpluses we were running into deficits because the farmers have been doing

well. They are demanding more and more consumer goods. The production of more and more

consumer goods requires production of more machinery and equipment and the

intern industry which was suffering until a couple of years ago from recessionary

conditions has recovered and has resumed its advance.

Now we've got to make certain that enough investment is going into industry.

For the people in India to be able to meet their requirements of consumer goods and of

producing goods in adequate measure up to some of your investment of course comes from the

outside.

But how about the great Tartuffe family they've always aroused my curiosity and

admiration must be an extraordinary family. What role do they play.

They played a pioneering role in Indian industry.

For example the very first steel mill that we had in India was due to the

initiative of Jim should you Tata who was the founder of the family

as well. And since then they have diversified a great deal.

For example they have a considerable amount of share in India

which is a nationalized undertaking it is controlled by the government. But others have a very

important share in it. And Mr. the ADI Tata is the chairman of

Air India. And they have gone in a great deal into a number of different branches

of industry and have been doing exceedingly well.

You say they have provided I think all kinds of incentives haven't they

and the means whereby you could develop that they are extraordinary

among people and I think want to be known about them.

See they have indeed done a remarkable job of work yes but at the same time

we feel in India that we should not go in for

tremendous acclamations of industrial power in WA in the hands of in the hands of a

limited number of families. And the result is that what we are trying to do

is to see that industrial power is dispersed to as

large an extent as feasible and also seeing to it that in the process of

continuing industrial advance the needs of social justice are not

overlooked because in a country like India where the large majority of

people is very poor. It is essential that they should all have the

feeling that they are sharing in the results of the progress that is being made.

And we feel that if at this stage there were to be a tremendous amount of concentration of wealth or of

industrial power into the hands of a few people that this could conceivably lead

to adverse effects.

You said it wrong. It is the price a country pays for the know

how of a particular group. Which brings the country

forward. But at the same time acquires wealth for itself. Still you need

some of their qualities. The same time you want them to become too powerful. Well that

is something I'm sure that the government knows best.

Most certainly yes. There is one last thing which I would very much like to

say.

It seems a great pity that at a time

when the prospects of development in India are looking

brighter than at any time in the past.

That a very important country like the United States should be losing interest in

foreign aid because I cannot think of any time

when not me India but other developing countries would

profit more would benefit more by economic

aid on an adequate scale than the kind of president Mr.

I'm sure your message will be had by the right people.

Thank you very much for being on our program. And I'd like to tell our audience that

you've had the pleasure of listening to this new job Mr. Al who is

Consul General of India in New York although he covers Eighteen of the of our United

States in his position and is also ambassador from his country to Costa Rica.

I thank you and goodbye.

That concludes tonight's edition of the Asia Society presents with Lee Graham.

This series comes to you through the cooperation of the Asia Society. If you would like to

comment on tonight's program or would like further information about the society and how you

can participate in its many interesting activities please write to Mrs. Graham

at WNYC New York City 100 0 7

and make a note to join us again next week at this time for another edition of the

Asia Society presents.

This is the national educational radio network.