One
of the thoughts that crowd, an average Indian mind today, is the question of
inhuman poverty still prevalent in our country. We are alarmed at the select stories of starvation deaths,
farmer suicides, gender discrimination, communal prejudices and the inhuman
living conditions of the poor in urban areas, reported by the censored mainstream media. The whole truth,
on the other hand, is actually disgusting. According to the human development
report 2011, 53.7% of Indians suffer deprivation in health, education and basic
sanitation that go to make a decent living for a human being. J Dash, the
director general of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in his report
for the year 2009-10, notes that 60% percent of rural population live only with
Rs. 35/- and Rs. 66/- per day in rural and urban areas respectively. What could
it probably get them? At the most food, clothes and some sort of habitat. Much
worse is the stories of Dalits and Adivasis, the faceless minority in India. Probably
they constitute the 10% identified as the poorest by the recent NSSO report, who
make a living in rural and urban areas with less than Rs. 15/- and Rs. 20/- per
day. It is a mystery how the contradictory
phrases ‘one of the fastest developing countries’ and ‘one of the world’s most
under developed countries’ go well to present a complete picture of our nation.
Are there two Indias?
In
their article, “Putting Growth in Its Place” Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen render
a scholarly treatment of the subject ‘economic inequality’ by presenting the
problems, their causes and plausible remedies in the context of our multi-party
democracy. We shall present their insights consecutively under the titles what,
why and the way out.
‘What’: The Problem
The Indian
economic problem is not poor economic growth. The growth estimates of per
capita income and GDP of our country are exceptionally high and are on the rise
since 1990s. The growth rates – 7.8% in 2002-03 to 2006-07 & 8% in 2007-08
to 2011-12 – are marked as the second highest in the world next only to China.
India needs rapid growth, as the income per capita ($3,560/-) is insufficient
to produce a reasonable standard of living. We are actually doing well in terms
of economic growth. But, the fruits of the growth are not equally shared by all. Dreze and Sen write, ‘indeed, even today,
after 20 years of rapid growth, India is still one of the poorest countries in
the world’. The fact is validated by the World Bank data which lists India as
one of the last outside Africa as regards the social indicators - basic
sanitation, health and education. I quote,
[O]nly five countries outside Africa (Afghanistan,
Bhutan, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea and Yemen) have a lower “youth female
literacy rate” than India (World Development Indicators 2011, online).
To take some other examples, only four countries (Afghanistan, Cambodia,
Haiti, Myanmar and Pakistan) do worse than India in child mortality rate; only three have lower levels of “access to
improved sanitation” (Bolivia, Cambodia and Haiti); and none (anywhere—not even in Africa) have a
higher proportion of underweight children. Almost any composite index of these
and related indicators of health, education and nutrition would place India
very close to the bottom in a ranking of all countries outside Africa.
The
scholars further point the seriousness of the problem by noting how despite the
indication of decent income per capita India is doing bad compared to its South
Asian neighbours Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and China. In
the scholars’ have attempted to rank South Asian countries in terms of growth and
development, with the available data as per the year (roughly) 2010, except the
high scores in the income per capita India stands last almost in every other
social indicator that measures development: life expectancy, underweight
children, child immunization, infant mortality, under five mortality, mean
years of schooling and accesses to improved sanitation. According to the
figures citizens of the rising super power meet death while their Asian
neighbours continue to live.
‘Why’: The Causes
Dreze
and Sen, primarily, point to the basic misconception of development as mere
economic growth, as the root for the miserable living standards in modern
India. “Demands of development” they write, “go well beyond economic growth.
Indeed economic growth is not constitutively the same thing as development, in
the sense of a general improvement in living standards and enhancement of
people’s well-being and freedom. Growth […] can be very helpful in achieving
development.” They term it as ‘growth mediated development’. Our country has
precisely failed here. Hence a great number continue to be affected by
ill-health, undernourishment and other deprivations irrespective of the
‘successful’ shift in economic policies in the 90’s. Bangladesh for example
with only a half of our income per capita has overtaken India in terms of basic
social indicators. We have failed to convert our economic growth to yield
integral development. The public revenue generated by fast economic growth has
not been equally distributed for the welfare of everyone especially the poor in
the nation. Naturally, then the growth has been enjoyed by a small group. This
in turn has resulted in the wide rich and poor divide – economic inequality –
in our nation. As far as the economic life is concerned, there truly exist two
Indias.
Moreover
with such lopsided idea of development, we have staged riots against our
environment, destroyed the culture and livelihood of poor Adivasis by
involuntary displacement. Everything is being done in the name of development.
But authentic development conserves environment our resource, and assures the
well-being of everyone, never the opposite.
Second,
democracy functions only by the force of participation
by the people in the elections, demands and policies. Participation is done
through public discussions, debates, conscientious strikes and most importantly
by politicization of the issue at hand. The poverty of our participation
nevertheless, is vivid in our democracy. This is worsened by the intrinsic
imbalance in the economic and political power founded on the good old
discriminations on the basis of caste, class and gender. The authours give the
examples of our media and parliament: Not even one of the 315 editors and other
leading members of the printed and electronic media in Delhi surveyed recently
by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies had belonged to a scheduled
caste or scheduled tribe; Lok Sabha is male dominated. Definitively we are not
well placed to address the concerns of the poor and the vulnerable. ‘The rural
issues get only two percent of the total news coverage in national dailies’
goes a recent study on rural-urban disparities. Thus we find a massive neglect
of the interests of the unprivileged in our governance. This implies, I quote,
“disregard for agriculture and rural development, environmental plunder for
private gain with huge social losses, large-scale displacement or rural
communities without adequate compensation and the odd tolerance of human rights
violations when the victims come from the underdogs of society”. The public
policies therefore, are mostly controlled by and directed to the significant
minority, with a meager proportion to the poor. They write,
However, the rhetoric of
inclusive growth has gone hand in hand with elitist policies that often end up
promoting a two-track society whereby superior (‘world-class’) facilities are
being created for the privileged, while the unprivileged receive second-rate
treatment, or are left to their own devices, or even become the target of
active repression – as happens, for instance, in cases of forcible displacement
without compensation, with a little help from the police.
‘Way Out’: Reasonable Solution
Dreze
and Sen propose two solutions: first, growth mediated development; second, a
comprehensive approach in public policies. They explain the former as skilful
use of the opportunities provided by the increasing public revenue. In this respect they invite us to take
lessons from China as it makes much better use of the opportunities offered by
the economic growth to expand public resources for developmental purposes. For
instance the government expenditure for health care in China, taking into
consideration its higher population and income per capita, is four times that
in India. As a result it has higher values for most social indicators such as
life expectancy (73 years in China - 64 years in India), infant mortality rate
(16 per thousand in China and 48 in India), and mean years of schooling
(estimated to be 7.6 years in China – 4.4 years in India) than India. In this
comparison, there is a tendency to escape pointing to the inefficiency of our
multi-party democracy in contrast to the autocracy in China. The authours
affirm that we can achieve such social policies by strong political will in our
country. I quote “using democratic means for remedying inadequate coverage of
public healthcare, non-extreme undernourishment, or inadequate opportunities
for school education demands more from democratic practice – more vigour and
much more range.”
Second
they invite us to adapt a more comprehensive approach in social policies to
eradicate poverty in India. The existing
approach offering assistance to the people on the basis BPL and Conditional
Cash Transfers (CCT) which they think enables them to meet the requirements for
the basic living conditions. Their ineffectiveness have been proved by the
persisting grand scale poverty in India. BPL is non-reliable and unjust as
there is an ever present danger to exclude the deserving poor with unrealistic
poverty line such as Rs. 27/- and 30/- in the recent past. Moreover, it divides
the public who in unity and strength can demand their right standard living
conditions. The method of monitory assistance CCT, as an alternative to creating
opportunities through public services would not improve the living conditions of
the poor. The cash received would not serve in a place where there is no
opportunity to convert them into a standard living condition. The authors therefore, propose a
comprehensive approach in social policies that assures a universal provision of
essential services such as health, education and sanitation. They argue that it
was the power of comprehensive approach that has given rise to the high social
indicators of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh in India.
Conclusion
A
critical summary of
Dreze,
Jean and Amartya Sen. “Putting Growth in Its Place: It has to be a Means to Development,
Not an End in Itself.” Outlook Nov
14, 2011 http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?278843
accessed 13/07/2012.
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