The Case for Free Enterprise

By A. D. Shroff

Summary

A. D. Shroff delivers the welcome address at the First Convention of the Forum of Free Enterprise, held on April 25 in Bombay, and uses it to recap why the Forum was launched on July 18, 1956 and what it has been doing in its first nine months. Its promoters were convinced that the case for Free Enterprise was ‘going by default’ in India, that planned development was being read as a mandate for ever more regulation, and that an organised body was needed to put before the public both Free Enterprise’s past achievements and its capacity to contribute to rapid, large-scale national development. The Forum, Shroff insists, is an educational and non-political institution — not a political party in waiting — and will continue its work ‘undeterred by official frowns or even threats’ directed at its workers.

The argumentative core is a defence of Free Enterprise inside, not against, planned development. Shroff accepts planning, a measure of control and regulation, and the goal of a higher standard of living through reduced disparities. What he rejects is regulation that ‘stifles initiative, incentive and enterprise’, concentrates power in the bureaucracy, and breeds a ‘fear complex’ that pushes businessmen into dependence on licences, contracts and other forms of government patronage. He pushes back on three specific charges from the period: that the Forum advocates obsolete 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism (he calls on the Prime Minister to read the Manifesto and recognise that the Forum’s position is a ‘dynamic and progressive’ use of individual initiative); that ‘private enterprise has failed’ or ‘all businessmen are crooks’ (dismissed as the outburst of new converts to Socialism); and that the Forum is foreign-inspired and American-financed (denied ‘categorically’, with the claim that it is ‘as genuinely Svadeshi … as any other national organization, not excluding the Congress’).

Shroff also makes a civil-liberty and press-freedom move: the Forum claims the right and liberty to criticise government, and concedes the same liberty to those who differ; it complains that three government officials have been given radio talks defending policy while the Forum is denied equivalent broadcast access. He acknowledges ‘black sheep’ in business — profiteering, black-marketing, tax evasion — promises the Forum’s full weight behind government action against such malpractices, and announces a Code of Conduct for businessmen and the professions (doctors, lawyers, teachers, journalists). He closes on a long-run note: a powerful, industrial India with a high standard of living is ‘no idle dream’ but ‘a living faith’, achievable if the joint endeavour of Free Enterprise and the State Sector proceeds in a ‘spirit of realism’, and that ‘Free Enterprise was born with man and shall survive as long as man survives.‘

Key points

• Sets out the Forum of Free Enterprise’s origin story: founded 18 July 1956 with a Manifesto in the national press, born of the conviction that the case for Free Enterprise was ‘going by default’ in India.

• Defines the Forum as an educational, non-political body — not a political party in formation — that places its services at the disposal of any organisation, ‘including the Congress’, willing to engage with its case.

• Accepts planned development, a measure of control and regulation, and reduced income/wealth disparities, while drawing a line against controls that stifle initiative and concentrate power in the bureaucracy.

• Diagnoses a ‘fear complex’ among businessmen forced to depend on licences and contracts, and warns that excessive regulation will gradually diminish the democratic way of life secured by the Constitution.

• Rejects the charge that the Forum stands for 19th-century laissez-faire capitalism and asks the Prime Minister to read the Manifesto and the Forum’s literature.

• Issues a categorical denial that the Forum is foreign-inspired or American-financed, calling it ‘as genuinely Svadeshi’ as the Congress.

• Asserts a free-speech / press-freedom claim: the right to criticise government and equivalent radio-broadcasting access to that already granted to three government officials defending policy.

• Announces a Code of Conduct for businessmen and the professions, and pledges the Forum’s support for government action against profiteering, black-marketing and tax evasion.

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