*Date with Controversy? Gandhi & Nehru’s Gift to UK* *A corporate executive’s tryst with pre-Independence history, in his quest for answers to unresolved puzzles surrounding the birth of two nations.*
*Past imperfect?* He goes on to argue that the interim administration headed by *Pandit Nehru that was in power on August 15, 1947 had taken certain administrative decisions that were manifestly unfair to the people of India.* The public therefore has the right to know what the circumstances were.? * * *“We gave enormous sums of money between 1939 and 1946 to Britain. The money India did not have.”* Here Phadnis adds a side note by claiming that the era of hyper-inflation that India experienced and which led to the *Bengal famine that left more than two million dead,* was wrongly attributed to wartime shortages when, in fact, it was due solely to the excess money supply to divert resources to the UK for its war effort. * * *The Sterling balance* *“By August 15, 1947, the loan had ballooned to 1.16 billion pound sterling. * The principles of settlement in this loan were flawed. There was no recognition of principal, the terms of repayment and collateral, etc. We should have charged at least 5 per cent on those, considering that India itself borrowed at 3 per cent locally. *Yet we agreed to an interest rate of 0.81 per cent.* That meant we were giving an interest subsidy of about 4 per cent on the loan or roughly Rs 60 crore at the prevailing exchange rate. Where was the need for it,” he asks. Then there was the other aspect of notional repayment with absolutely worthless pieces of military assets that they left behind and which they couldn’t have carted with them anyway. To cap it all, the *Government made the worst blunder when it committed to keep the loan designated in Pound Sterling*, which, he argues, was widely seen as a worthless currency. It was only a matter of time before it was devalued. “About two years later, when the Pound was devalued our loan got devalued by 30 per cent. How can we term this as an agreement between two sovereign States? Where then is the question of celebrating India’s Independence on August 15 every year,” he asks.” The most charitable interpretation that one could place on whatever was agreed to then could be that the two parties, namely India and the UK, were not entering into a contract as equals but rather as servant and master. He reminisces, *“The tragedy in this country is that Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on the wrongful belief that he allowed Pakistan to get away with Rs 55 crore of India’s money at the time of Partition when in fact it rightfully belonged to Pakistan.”* “Had the fact of India gifting away Rs 60 crore to the UK in interest subsidy come to light, would the lay public have not felt so agitated about the money going to Pakistan and possibly Gandhiji’s life spared from an assassin’s bullet?” he wonders. That would forever remain one of the many puzzling questions about India’s modern history. He reckons that the *loss suffered by India due to the unfavourable terms of the loan settlement was a staggering $5 billion then, and reckons today [in 2007] this would amount to $100 billion.* *D. Sampathkumar** Rahul Wadke* http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/life/2007/12/28/stories/2007122850010100.htm Thanks & Regards, * Sudhir Srinivasan *B.Arch, MSc.CPM, Dip.ID, Dip.CAD, Dip.PM *|**** Architect**** |***** Thanks & Regards, * Sudhir Srinivasan *B.Arch, MSc.CPM, Dip.ID, Dip.CAD, Dip.PM *|**** Architect**** |***** -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
