India's foremost imperative

The Indian political mainstream does not tire of telling us that growth is our biggest imperative. And that Maoist violence is the biggest threat to India’s future. All this, of course, in a country where millions of kids die every year from preventable diseases and where staggering numbers of people hover at or under poverty levels. So, what’s the solution ? Growth ? But growth for what ? So that the top 300 million in the country gets sucked into the trajectory of elitist global economy at a rapid pace ?

A cursory glance at the history of the last 60 years of independent India shows that trickle-down does not work effectively in India as a means of economic progress. And the lack of initiative in population control and planning has overwhelmed the ability of trickle-down to better people’s lives in meaningful ways. Also, several socio-economic analyses by experts points to an unwillingness to undertake serious egalitarian initiatives on the part of the elite, and the hijacking of the democratic process by elitist power centers. There are more Indians below the poverty line in 2010 than there were Indians in 1947, when the Brits left India to God and to chaos, as Gandhi had once asked them to do ( they did it after partitioning India, while Gandhi had asked them to do it without partitioning India ).

Okay, so I am a person that sees the glass as half full. But, honestly, where is the ray of hope for the people at the bottom ? There are all kinds of optimistic brouhaha about how the growth rate of India’s tax revenues is outpacing even India’s GDP growth rate. A 14 percent tax revenue increase per year ( I think that’s the number I have heard, though I haven’t checked it ) should provide better options to the government to implement poverty alleviation measures. And the recent institution of programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme ( NREGS ) seems to point to a willingness on the part of the Indian elite to share some of the recent fruits of growth with the unfortunate at the bottom, especially those in rural areas. But the real failure is the inability to bring about development in rural areas. The ability of the NREGS to provide a sustainable path to self-dependence for the rural population is uncertain.

While the previous discussion dealt with the inability of the current growth paradigm in India to provide a sustainable path to a more prosperous life for many people, there is another ugly aspect of India’s growth story. And that’s the direct conflict between the needs of growth, and the displacement of tribals and farmers from their lands. I will try to deal with this difficult topic in another article. However, there is one aspect that is obvious. And that’s the apathy of the urban elite when it comes to development in tribal areas.

So India’s biggest imperative is not mere growth, but growth combined with intelligent planning and sacrifice on the part of the privileged classes so that the less privileged ones can be prepared to deal with the challenges of a modern economy. Since the privileged classes haven’t dealt with this challenge in the last 60 years, why should one be sanguine about the prospects for the future ?