for our day to day needs we had to pay higher price
for the same goods in the black market. Thus Britain
for her war acquired Indian goods at an artificial low
price since 1943; we had to pay an artificially higher
price in order to subsist during a war not exactly our
own.
For all these materials and services supplied by
India what has Britain given in exchange? Britain
has transferred to Indian ownership about £360 mil-
lion capital invested by Britain before the war. In
addition to this amount the Reserve Bank of India has
received a credit of 1300 million paper sterlings. The
sterlings are in ordinary language I.O.U. promissory
notes passed by a bankrupt Britain to a starving credi-
tor India.
India was dragged into the war without her con-
sent. She was made to part with men and materials
under compulsion. At the same time she was forced
to accept LO.U.s of Britain because debtor Britain is
the political master of India.