Word: gandhis
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...this prosperity is the government's doing. The rise in food production is primarily the result of sheer luck: two seasons in a row of magnificent monsoons. At least part of the gains can be attributed to draconian but pragmatic policies that Mrs. Gandhi adopted while democratic liberties were suspended. The state of emergency was indeed partly proclaimed because opponents would not let the Prime Minister forget that her 1971 election slogan-AN END TO POVERTY-had been turned into a mockery by the war with Pakistan, the absorption of 10 million refugees from Bangladesh, two successive drought years...
Freed from the necessity of wooing voters or answering opponents, Mrs. Gandhi was able to sidestep her socialistic promises of welfare programs and land reform. To contain inflation, the government in effect banned strikes and required employers to withhold and deposit in banks money awarded to workers in wage increases. Production quotas on private industry were lifted. (Businesses had not been allowed to produce as much as they could, out of socialistic concern that their owners might get too rich.) The dominant state-owned sector of industry, which deals in such key goods as steel, coal and iron...
Birth Control. The government also set out to abolish the illegal "parallel economy" that had flourished alongside the official one. About 1,300 smugglers were thrown in jail. Mrs. Gandhi, on the other hand, declared an amnesty from criminal charges for people who had failed to pay sufficient taxes-often on wealth accumulated from undeclared remittances sent home by Indians living abroad-provided they declared their holdings and paid taxes and a penalty on them. Large sums that would otherwise have been spent on such luxury items as cars and air conditioners flowed into the treasury, adding to foreign exchange...
Many problems remain. Bad weather over the next few years could wipe out food-production gains. Businessmen generally support Mrs. Gandhi's programs, but complain that investment is restricted by monetary and credit controls imposed to hold down inflation...
...money to increase production in "core" industries, including oil and fertilizers. Liberalization of import controls is bringing in raw materials for export industries and supplies of scarce commodities such as cotton and cooking oil. And, assuming her Congress Party wins the March elections-which it almost surely will-Mrs. Gandhi will have to deal with an unaccustomed problem of plenty: how to distribute surplus food before it rots in the fields...