Accidental India

by Shankkar Aiyar

The Essential Commodities Act gave the government the authority to regulate or prohibit the production and control of supply and distribution and absolute control over the pricing of anything declared essential.

C. Rajagopalachari, popularly known as Rajaji, who quit the Congress in 1954 and founded the Swatantra Party in 1959, brilliantly defined the proposed dispensation as the licence-permit-quota raj, and was among the first to oppose it.