(Established January 1949)

July 10, 1954 V o l u m e V I — N o 2 8 E ight annas

EDITORIALS

Bhakra-Nangal 755 Negotiating with a Tiger . . . 757

WEEKLY NOTES

Monetary Policy and Development —More of Some and Less of Others— More Sugar Mills for Bombay — Action on Ford Re­port : A Correction—Indians in Ceylon Denied Fair Represen­tation 759

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Solving the Cattle Problem 762

FROM T H E CALCUTTA END

Congress May Lose West Bengal— If Refugees Remain Unsettled 763

FROM THE LONDON END

Alternatives to EDC 765

SPECIAL ARTICLES

Language in Science —O L Chavarria-A guitar 767

Anti-Indian Demonstrations in Nepal: The Post-Mortem Ana-lysis — Y P Pant 772

FROM T H E CHAIR

Larsen & Toubro Ltd 774

Industrial & Prudential's Another Year of Satisfactory Progress 775

AROUND BOMBAY MARKETS

Equities React But Rise Again 776

AROUND CALCUTTA MARKETS

Hesitancy Disappearing 778

COMPANY NOTES

Hind Cycles—British India Gen­eral—industrial & Prudential 779

CURRENT STATISTICS 780

The Economic Weekly Noble Chambers, Parsi Bazar St.,

Fort Bombay. Phone: 23406

B h a k r a - N a n g a l

W HERE great construction works br ing to the service of man the melt ing snows of the Himalayas and the rain waters that run to

waste or spell death and destruction in untamed floods—these are the places of modern man's workshop. Pandit Nehru saw this homage to the spirit of man in the masses of steel and concrete that turned the waters of the Sutlej through the Nangal hydel channel into the Bhakra canals to. water the thirsty lands of Punjab, Pepsu and Rajputana. Knowledge, disciplined work and organisation can make the Indus river system serve adequately not only the two Punjabs but the whole of West Pakistan and the Nor th West of India . Hut the waters of the Sutlej which are now successfully dammed at Nangal to feed what is to develop into the largest network of irr igation channels in the wor ld , running to a total length of 2980 miles, happen also to be the waters of contention between India and Pakistan, The destruction that untamed water can wrought is not therefore confined to the destruction of lands and dwellings.] Rivers may destroy people if they are not tamed, tamed by technology, disciplined work and organisation,' but tamed also by knowledge and chastened by goodwill.

The completion of the Nangal project ahead of scheduled time and the release of water from it for helping cult ivat ion has been hailed as a bid by Punjab to regain its position as the granary of India . The inauguration of the Bhakra-Nangal project happens to synchronise w i th the l i f t ing of last remaining control of foodgrains., Wheat has already been de-controlled and coarse grain before that. The control on rice also goes today, So there is some t r u t h in this contention, in that the completion of the multipurpose projects enable the country to face the future w i t h a new confidence. But to look upon the opening of the Nangal D a m as a b id by Punjab to regain its lost position as the granary of Ind ia would be to belittle a l l that the Bhakra-Nangal project holds in store not only far Punjab but for the whole of Nor th Western Ind ia . For it is only a step forward; much more is yet to come. Even al l the potentialities for i rr igat ion w i l l not be realised unt i l the Bhakra reservoir-is completed. The generation of power that is to fol low by stages w i t h the progress of the project has only made a token beginning. The slope of the canal f rom the Nangal D a m w i l l enable power to be generated from two installations of which only one has been erected up t i l l now. Like the canal system that Bhakra-Nangal w i l l feed, the power supply w i l l extend far beyond Punjab,—to Delhi , Pepsu, Himacha l Pradesh and Rajputana. T h e high transmission net work has already reached up to Delh i and i n due course the power supply w i l l be large enough not only to l ight every small town but also perhaps to change the face of the land and make the Nor th West hum w i t h industrial activity. Punjab is used to i r r igat ion and wants more of i t ; but utilisation of power is a problem that remains to be planned and properly organised.

T h e river valley projects are the hard core of the Five-Year Plan. There is na tura l rejoicing that one of them could be completed before the scheduled time and special reason for gratification in that I n d i a n Engineers should be able to pu t their experience to such f ru i t fu l use.

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

(C) fincas vacionales. large estates taken over from Germans during the Wor ld War II. Now for " to expropriate " substitute "acqui ­sition with payment of due compen­sation " — and that seems to have been the idea since some compen­sation was of fe red-and in the cate-g destitute land let out on c or any of the systems p i ere of share cropping, and there is, little difference between what President Guzman tried to do and what his opposite numbers are t rying to do in many countries of South-East Asia.

Justice Douglas of the US Supreme Court once presented the problem of land, reform in Asian countries as and of " negotiating w i th the tiger for its skin". This picturesque metaphor, however, is more appropriate for the Western hemisphere tor landed interests in South-East Asia cannot hit back on their own as they seem to be able to do in Lat in America. To cut a long story short, Britain had sent battleships to British Guiana; the US did nothing of the sort, it believes in private enterprise. The United Fruit Go knows how to take care of itself. The US merely sup­plied arms to the neighbouring states, refused to supply any to Guatemala and politely requested permission from Britain, France and others to search their ships to see if they were carrying any arms to Guatemala on the alleged ground that Guatemala had received an arms shipment f r o m Poland! Manchester Guardian alone had the courage to speak out that it was no violation of international law for any country to get arms from another, except when it was de­clared a belligerent. New York Times felt embarrassed that troops should march into Guatemala from across the borders into that poor and unhappy state which may have an elected government but had noth­ing like "our Senate Committees" to ventilate the. grievances of its people. One should hopefully look out. therefore for the more enlighten­ed section of the American press to make sure that the new government which tomes into power wi th the blessings and active connivance of t h e Organisation of American States extends these blessings of democracy to the unfortunate peo­ple: of Guatemala. The press of the free world has not said that it is happy to dose this chapter bearing that hope in mind nor has Justice Douglas bothered to suggest how best Guatemalans should negotiate

wi th the tiger for its skin, without calling u p o n themselves divine wrath once again.

Those who are genuinely perplex­ed should draw what little comfort they can from the State Depart­ment's action against the United Frui t Co. Et in Brute? This spear­head of private enterprise which had been struggling all these years

to develop the under-developed country of Guatemala has been hauled up, after President Guzman had thrown in the sponge, for an inquisition under the anti-trust legislation. This is the American way to harmonise private, enterprise with social welfare. To them that have shall be given: from those that have not, shall be taken away.

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