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FRAGMENTS OF : PRISONER » DIARY
political State is based upon a particular form of property, and the possibilities of the cconomic development are limited by the established relationship of property. A paternalistic State is the bulwark of pre-capitalist property relation which sets a narrow limit to social productivity ; the masses are necessarily kept on a low level of living. The doctrines of simple living. virtuousness of poverty, sacrifice, self-control, so on and :o forth, are the ideological super-structure of the precapitalist cconomy of scarcity. It is casy to see that the realisation of the reactionary ideal of a paternalistic State (Ramraj) vould aggravate our ecosomic problems. instead of solving them. As a inatter of fact, these problems have resulted largely froin the maintenance of the antiquated relations of property in the basic incans of production (land). The present economic ruin of the country has been brought about by the fact that the British Raj is also a paternalistic State. If paternalism is Jetriinental to progress, it is much more so when exercised by a foster-father, who assumes the trust tempted by the wealth of the helpless ward.
However, the point is that paternalism cannot be the political idcal of the Indian masscs, who must have democratic freedom as the essential condition for the introduction of measures which will open before then the road to progress and prosperity. Cultural and social idcals not consistent with this political ideal, must be discarded as
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