Anatomy of 'Aid'Ashutosh Varshney FOREIGN AID TO INDIA By Brojendra Nath Banerjee Agam Prakashan, Delhi, 1977, pp. 378, Rs.80.00 VOLUME III NUMBER 2 September/October 1978 Foreign aid to
India is a subject which has attracted good deal of scholarly attention. Its
topicality, too, has seen many revivals, the latest occasion being Carter's
visit to India early this year. Surprisingly, the works available so far have
failed to present an in-depth analysis on the subject, verging either more on
the biased side or betraying a much too configurative approach. B.N. Banerjee's
attempt is not an exception. Though purporting to deal with foreign aid to
India in general, he confines himself to US aid with only sporadic references
to aid from other quarters.
The book has been divided into six chapters of which four merit critical
attention. The other two are not intended to be analytical chapters. While
chapter III deals with ‘The Cooley Loan Programmes in India’, chapter IV
contains a more or less descriptive account of the ‘termination of US aid to India'.
The other four are examined here in detail.
The first chapter deals with ‘What is foreign aid?’ (though the writer
incorporates a number of allied, and at places even unrelated, topics). Aid is
defined as ‘a concessionary transfer of public resources from the developed
countries to the developing countries for the latter's economic development’.
The developing countries, including India, needed such aid, for their economic
growth was hampered by inadequate capital inflow or shortage of foreign exchange.
From the donor's side the 'correlation between poverty and instability'
ostensibly formed the premise motivating an aid programme. Conversely,
however, the corresponding correlation
assumed between economic development and foreign aid was ‘not very tangible’
for development itself, despite aid, depended on certain variables—the cultural
characteristics of the recipient nation, political considerations in allocation
of aid, and the donor's strings. It is the last factor which draws a line between
what is professed to be a philanthropic exercise and what actually is a 'solid
benefit'. Apart from political gains,
stimulation of exports, creation of employment opportunities, disposal of
surplus, easy procurement of necessary raw materials and the creation of a
favourable climate for private investment were benefits that flowed from aid.
As a result, the main beneficiaries were the donors themselves. For the
recipients it had little to offer except creating ‘enclaves of privileged elites addicted to First
World luxuries and having standards’.
Throughout
the chapter, we find two incoherent stands jumbled ... Table of Contents >> |