The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE), located in Bombay,
India, brings out a bulletin called "Aspects of India's Economy"
published 4 times a year. RUPE is a two-person outfit comprised of Ms.
Rajani X. Desai, an economist and a young compatriot. Ms. Desai, who
was previously on the editorial board of the well-known "Economic and
Political Weekly" (EPW) for many years decided to leave EPW and
started RUPE with her own retirement funds since EPW was becoming
increasingly commercialized and was accepting advertisements from
corporations.
I have found "Aspects of India's Economy" to be an excellent journal
of political economy which seeks to explain the workings of the
economy of a third-world country (India) in a simple language with
extensive economic data that can be easily understood by the ordinary
lay person. Journals of this type, which present and explain
concrete economic and social facts from the left progressive
viewpoint, are increasingly rare in today's climate. At present
"Aspects" is being published primarily in English with some articles
being translated into other Indian languages. The intention is to
publish it in the major Indian languages for which support is
required. The primary purpose of "Aspects" is to provide a
theoretical weapon in the hands of political activists who are
fighting the comprador capitalist class implememting IMF-World Bank
structural adjustment programs in third-world countries like India.
As an example, the January-March 1997 issue of "Aspects" contains
articles on "Union Budget 1997-98", "Welfare, agriculture slashed",
"Road to Mexico", "Why stagnation", "Black money blessed", "Plant
patenting alarm", etc.
In the spirit of international solidarity and in order to understand
the workings of a third-world economy from those who are under
the boot of international and comprador finance capital, I urge the
comrades and all progressive people of this list to subscribe to
this journal. The annual subscription price (4 issues) is only $11
which includes postage. Please send your subscription orders
(personal checks) in the name of:
Research Unit for Political Economy
18, Peter Marcel Building
Plot 941, Prabhadevi (Opposite Prabhadevi Temple)
Bombay 400025,
INDIA
Phone: 91-22-4220492
Below is reproduced an editorial from "Aspects no. 1, July 1990 and
then some economic statistics on the effects of "Structural
Adjustment" (imperialism) on the people of India during 1991-1994
which RUPE has summarized.
S. Chatterjee
Why 'Aspects'?
[Editorial of "Aspects", no. 1, July 1990]
The economy should be the concern of ordinary people. For it is
they who work it. And the quality of their lives, their joys and
tragedies, are decided by the way the economy functions. Unemployment
eats into their very existence; retrenchment with modernisation throws
them out of production and livelihood; a retrograde agriculture keeps
most of them depressed without the wherewithal for producing
surpluses; drought and flood in such rural conditions drive some to
the cities where they add to the insecure wretched seeking odd jobs at
any wage. This is twentieth century India.
For four decades and more our country has been ruled using the
rhetoric of "planning" and even "socialism". Still people are being
told that their condition will improve with this or that change of
policy. Most people's lives, however, have gotten worse.
As rulers have ruled, economists have advised and are increasingly
giving consent. Economists cannot change the economy; they are a
profession as any other. People can and must for their own sake. For
economic history is made in political terms. And the sooner people
become conscious of this and are in their own democratic forums
organised to effect it, the sooner will such change take place. For
this they must understand how the economy functions; why it functions
in ways opposite to the stated objectives of policy; why their
economic condition is what it is; and what premises must change -- how
the constitution of society itself must change -- to bring precept and
practice into alignment.
"Aspects of India's Economy" is aimed to reach ordinary people. It
can only reach them indirectly, in the present circumstances of
illiteracy and diversity of language, through individuals and
associations who, having direct contact with broad sections of people,
can widely disseminate its contents. "Aspects" will seek to inform on
economic policy, on the mechanics and links of our country's economic
life, and on the facts and statistics that are given to us officially
and through academia.
Most papers reflect on the economy from the angle of business
interests, or of ostensibly all classes and interests. This generally
is called a balanced view of the economy. Such a balance blurs issues
as it fails to put a consistent focus on the basic issues and to
relate all other issues as secondary to them. For instance,
retrenchment is today good for profits; it is also an aspect of the
massive endemic unemployment in the country and the underdevelopment
of Indian industry and capital which are the basic issues. We will
thus be concerned with restoring a different kind of balance. We will
persistently aim to show how un-employment is bad for the economy
(not only for the people who are un-employed), how particular
interests make the economy less efficient in their pursue of
self-interest. Efficiency and inefficiency of economic decision or
policy must be judged in terms of whether the particular deployment of
materials, means and labour in fact best serves the needs of ordinary
people and their development as productive beings; whether the
particular deployment is part of such a path of cumulative deployment;
whether it conserves resources. There is a also a fundamental fact
about the international arena which defines a crucial criterion for
efficiency. The world today is divided into individual states with
vast inequalities in their wealth, development and living standards --
inequalities which have developed as part of a historical process of
colonisation and resource "transfers". We must always judge therefore
whether a particular deployment of resources takes us further into
inequality and dependence or away from it.
So judged, the greater profits of individual enterprises may
actually reflect a misallocation of resources from the point of the
whole economy and may totally militate against overall economic
efficiency. On the other hand, a unit may be highly innovative and
efficient in the use of resources but helpless in particular market
situations. Yet such units get driven out in the name of competition
as the market today is structured in favour of an inefficient
deployment and stunted development of our resources of men, materials,
and equipment.
Therefore "Aspects" will focus on and hammer away at particular
themes because they relate to certain basic issues which are ignored
by the 'mainstream' media and academia.
The more working people and people concerned with the economy
contribute to our work, the more effectively can "Aspects of India's
Economy" analyse, understand and present the working of the economy.
If ordinary people start trusting their own experience of the economy
as part of the general truth about it and find use for the connections
made in these writings, the venture will have been worthwhile.
*****************************************************************
'STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT'
(These statistics relate to India and are from RUPE)
Foodgrains price rise: 1990-91 (avge) to Dec. 1994: +70%
PDS Central Issue Price Increase: June 1991 to Feb 1994
common rice 86%, wheat 72%
Amt of foodgrains distributed under PDS:
1991: 20.8 mn.t (milliontons)
1994: 14.1 mn.t
change: -32%
Foodgrains availability/capita per day:
1991: 510 gm/day
1994: 474 gm/day
Percentage below poverty line:
1990-91: 35.5%
1992-93: 40.7%
Increase in fertiliser prices between 6/91 and 9/94: 100%
Bank credit to agriculture as a % of net bank lending:
as on 23/3/90: 17.4%
as on 18/3/94: 13.9%
No. of workers retrenched from PSUs (public sector units) through VRS
schemes: 1992-94: 75,000
Addition to organised sector employment:
1989-90: 4.5 lakhs
1990-91: 3.8 lakhs
1991-92: 3.2 lakhs
1992-93: 1.6 lakhs
(1 lakh = 100,000)
Annual addition to India's workforce: about 80 lakhs
Share of wages in corporate output:
1990-91: 9.2%
1993-94: 8.5%
Share of gross profit in corporate sector sales:
1990-91: 13.3%
1993-94: 15.4%
External debt:
March 1991: about Rs 150,000 crore ($42.85 billion)
Sept. 1994: about Rs 284,000 crore ($81.14 billion)
External debt servicing:
1990-91: Rs 14,765 crore ($4.22 billion)
1995-96 (proj.): Rs 40,782 crore ($11.65 billion)
External debt servicing per Indian family of five:
1990-91: Rs 490/yr ($14/yr)
1995-96 (proj.): Rs 2195/yr ($62.7/yr)
(Note: to convert from Indian rupees to US dollars, I have used an
exchange rate of $1 = Rs 35. This may lead to some errors in
making estimates in dollar terms for 1990-91 figures when the exchange
rate was around Rs 30-32 to a US dollar - SC).
Objectives of RUPE
"The Research Unit for Political Economy (R.U.P.E.) is constituted
under the People's Research Trust, which is a registered public trust
The Research Unit for Political Economy is concerned with
analysing, at the theoretical and empirical levels, various aspects of
the economic life of the country and its institutions.
It aims to compile, analyse, and present information and
statistics so as to enable people to understand the actual mechanics
of their every day life. And, in this, it aims to take assistance and
insights of people engaged in every sphere of productive work and
society.
It feels that much of the research currently carried out with
heavy funding is conditioned directly and indirectly by the implicit
frame set by the funders.
The R.U.P.E. does not accept foreign institutional funding. It
runs on limited finances raised from personal contributions.
Contributions towards its work, either monetary or in the form of
actual work, are welcome."
