CHAPTER 3

DEMANDS FOR GRANTS 1965-66

Lok Sabha, 30 March 1965

I am very grateful to the Members who have participated in this debate. This is the third debate which I have had the privilege of participating in and I must say that I have seen a marked change as the years have gone by, in the tone and content of the debate. I find the debate becoming more and more constructive, it is becoming somewhat more pleasant, if I may say so. But at the same time, the most important part of it is that it is becoming more realistic.

In this debate, many points have been raised, but with your permission, I would only deal with the main lines or main arguments of the criticism or the major topics of the criticism.

Before I come to the points made by Members who participated in the debate, I must give my own assessment of the situation in the country from the point of view of defence. I feel that in 1962, when the Chinese invaded our country, some sort of a new era dawned in the life of our country. It was certainly a rude shock to us; we did not expect that type of attack from that corner. But new realistic thinking started functioning more effectively since then. I have no doubt about that in my mind.

An hon. Member referred to an article by an expert on strategy. I entirely agree with one argument in that article. Recent trends in international thinking are also changing in relation to the importance of the problems of security. Naturally, more and more importance is being given to the problems of defence and security in different countries today. This is more particularly true in the case of our own country. I have no doubt in my mind that the central theme of political thinking at least for a decade, if not more, will have to be the consideration of national security. Other topics and other matters will have to be related to this. I do not want to underestimate the importance of other matters, particularly economic development which is equally important; but certainly economic development also will have to take into account the problems of national security and defence.

It is from this point of view that the remarks made by the hon. Member, Shri Nath Pai, become more relevant. He mentioned the percentage of expenditure on our national defence. He made a reference to India’s own expenditure. I would like to correct him slightly. It is 5.3.

Since we arc giving the figures, I think we should be rather more accurate. Then he compared the figures of our expenditure with those of Canada and Australia. I would consider that comparison to be rather unrealistic because the problems of Canada and Australia are completely different from those that we are facing in our own country. If at all we want to compare— at least have an assurance of comparison of figures with any other countries— I would recommend the figures for UK and USA. Of course, their problems are different : their development is different. Naturally, they will have a bigger slice of a bigger cake to borrow the words of Shri Nath Pai himself. The UK figure is 8.3 and the US figure 10.6.

Compared to these, our slice, of our small cake is still smaller. Naturally, we will have to go further and further in this matter. How far that will be will naturally have to be related, again, to our other problems in the country.