(EDITORIAL) Sir Ardeshir Dalal and the Bombay Planners … are in London trying to make a deal, joint-stock and cartel. Just as the Congress is never tired of prating that it wants power not for itself but for the people, the Bombay school of capitalists proclaim in unctuous tones that they seek prosperity not for themselves but for the country. To double the per capita income of Rs.65 which is their professed aim is not without purpose for Sir Ardeshir Dalal, addressing the East India Association, confesses that “unless the purchasing power of the masses is improved, it will not be possible to dispose of the products of industry at reasonable prices”.

No one disputes that an increase in the purchasing power is to be welcomed, but it is not so much the interests of the masses as their own which govern the policy of the Indian industrialists. When the rich get richer, the trick of doubling or trebling or further multiplying the per capita income will have been achieved but whether the average Indian would endorse such an illusory higher average income in India seems to be ignored by this capitalist clique….

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2020