In the long run, the more lasting solution can be only in terms of continuous expansion of the export sector. The various ways in which this goal is to be achieved have been spelt out in the Fourth Plan. I have not dwelt at great length on these micro-implications, since what is of more basic relevance is to provide an acceptable framework for sustained economic growth over scores of years. The economic development will have to strengthen the forces of democratic socialism in the country. The basic democratic values which have been enshrined in the Constitution must get reinforced by economic planning and each must draw its strength and vitality from the other. This is the first time that the biggest democracy in the world is making a sincere effort to break the shackles of poverty and stagnation. What is at stake is not merely economic emancipation but survival of democracy and liberal thought in the country.
If I have not coined my own short-term expression for the economic strategy for the seventies, it is because I believe that in the seventies, as indeed in the eighties, we will need for our economic development all the things we have emphasised in each of our plans. At the same time, we will have to possess sympathetic understanding and a sensitivity to the sufferings and privations of the neglected and the poor. There is no strategy which can provide an escape from these and from hard work and united endeavour for many decades to come.