The Economy of Permanence: A Quest for a Social Order Based on Non-violence (स्थायी अर्थतन्त्र)

Economy of Permanence
THE NEED AND NATURE OF PLANNING
What is it that we plan for? Many people think that national planning is a very
intricate matter to be understood only by technicians and experts. Planning will
have no life if the man in the street does not understand what we are planning
for. We cannot call it national planning if the farmers do not comprehend the
purpose of it and lend their whole-hearted support to the carrying out of the
plan. Unless we are able to get that intellectual understanding we shall not be
able to carry through our plan, except by tremendous violence as has been
done in Russia. We do not want bloodshed to carry out our plan. The people
should understand whether or not what is laid before them is to their interest.
If they approve of it we shall have their willing co-operation.
Our object is to organise the villages for a happier, more prosperous and fuller
life in which the individual villager will have the opportunity to develop both as
an individual and as a unit of a well integrated society. This has to be done by
using local initiative and local resources to the utmost extent possible in the
economic, political, and social fields, building these on cooperative lines. Self-
reliant and properly organised life in the villages will thus be the aim of our
planning. Whatever schemes of activity are taken up locally should not merely
be good for the locality, but should fit in harmoniously with the general plan.
Such work should ultimately lead to the establishment of a just and democratic
social order.
WHAT IS PLANNING
Planning means the getting together of certain factors to serve an end. What
are the factors in India that we have got to get together? There may be factors
today in our plans that do not exist in other countries. Therefore, the plan that
Russia has taken or the plan that England or America has followed need not
necessarily be the same that will lead us to the goal.
When the plan of Great Britain is mentioned it will cause astonishment. People
have never heard of it. The British do not plan but they work to plan. That is
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