Swatantra Asks Centre To End All Controls

Summary

This single-page newspaper report from Madras covers resolutions passed at the Swatantra Party’s Sixth National Convention. The convention called for an end to economic controls, arguing that the controls imposed over the previous twenty-five years had failed to raise production and had instead produced inefficiency, corruption, and excessive bureaucracy. It urged the government to put aside ideological commitments and adopt policies that increased production, while criticising the elevation of statism and bureaucracy as guardians of consumers and ordinary citizens. The report also records the party’s opposition to socialism, which Piloo Mody described as an “opiate to intoxicate people” and as something that could be attributed to society only by force.

Other resolutions addressed state control over grain trade, international relations, the treatment of prisoners of war, the Andhra state reorganisation issue, the Orissa constitutional crisis, inter-State river waters, and the demand for a separate independent Tamil Nadu. The convention supported freer international trade and closer relations with India’s immediate neighbours, including an amendment concerning India’s relations with the Soviet Union. The clipping identifies no named author, newspaper, or printed year; its dateline is “MADRAS, April 15.”

Key points

• The Swatantra Party’s Sixth National Convention passed resolutions on economic controls, production, socialism, trade, foreign policy, and federal questions.
• The party argued that twenty-five years of controls had not sufficiently increased production and had contributed to inefficiency and corruption.
• Delegates urged the government to reject ideological predilections and favour policies that promoted production.
• The report records opposition to state control, statism, bureaucracy, and socialism.
• The convention criticised the proposed takeover of the grain trade as likely to lead to collectivisation and harm farmers and traders.
• Resolutions supported freer international relations, including improved relations with neighbouring Asian countries.
• The clipping also reports interventions on prisoners of war, Andhra, Orissa, inter-State river waters, and a separate Tamil Nadu.