I picked this one from Mainstream Weekly ( Dated: January 24 2009). It takes into consideration different aspects of development and how economic development, which is only a sub-set of the development sector, is over emphasized. Lack of focus on health, education and agriculture has ultimately lead to economic deprivation of Indians, putting the government on a contradictory stand.
Rapid Inclusive Economic Growth: The Only Way Forward
Monday 26 January 2009, by Suhas Borker
The only way forward, to put it simply in four words, is rapid inclusive economic growth. It is restoring the Idea of an inclusive India—which is as much an integral part of the Idea of India as a democratic and secular India, to the people of India. The Idea of an inclusive India (inclusive socially, culturally and economically) that lies in the very core of the history of the freedom struggle can be best seen in the image of Gandhi, on the eve of Independence Day in August 1947, in Kolkata, away from the pomp and glitter of the transfer of power in New Delhi, trying to bring succour to the riot afflicted. “To suffer with the afflicted and try to relieve their suffering has been my life’s work,” he had said.
The global economic crisis and the financial meltdown have brought us to a moment of truth. The writings on the wall are clear. Find opportunity in adversity. Apply the TINA factor. Prioritise, focus and push forward.
For launching an intensive programme of Rapid Inclusive Economic Growth (RIEG), there are two types of disorders that inflict our mindset which have to be recognised and got rid off immediately. The first type of disorder is schizophrenia. This has two elements. The first is a split on the role of the state in the economic development of the country, which is manifest in the general withdrawal of the state and encouragement of privatisation of profits and nationalisation of losses. The second is the split on the role of the real economy and the financial economy, which is evident in making the former subservient to the latter. The second type of disorder is the obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). This also has two elements. The first is the fixation with rate of growth, ignoring the Human Development Index (HDI). The second is the obsession with the Sensex, making it the barometer of India’s economic health, though all are aware that FIIs have been manipulating its rise and fall and that their vanishing trick led to the stock exchange crash last year.
These two disorders are symptomatic of the psychosis of the Indian state caused by economic subversion led by elements inimical to inclusive economic growth. Elements of India Incorporated, aided and abetted by other comprador elements, in different spheres and sectors, are part of the concerted hostile takeover bid of the Idea of India.
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THERE is no point talking here of how over the years the economic content of the Idea of India was hijacked and transmuted from the inclusive to the exclusive. But some questions of here and now have to be raised. While no one denies the importance of growth, how does social welfare and elimination of poverty become a function of growth and not of policy? How can India sustain a high growth rate while continuing to allocate abysmally low fractions of its GDP on Health and Education? How does India steadily move up on the Human Development Index—where with a HDI of 0.609, we are currently placed 132nd out of 179 countries.
At another level there are also other questions. Can the collapse of Satyam bring us closer to satya? Can this expose of the innards of our financial system help the cleanup process? Can the most stringent penalties be imposed on the scamwallas and those who did the great cover-up on the fudging? Can mechanisms be put in place to keep accountants, bankers, auditors, and analysts under a constant scanner? Can corporate governance be made beyond reproach?
There is a contradiction between the market and inclusive economic growth. The market cannot be inclusive by its very nature. It only admits those who can play in the market, that is, those who have the money to spend. While the market which plays such a dominant role in the economy cannot be wished away, the state has a constitutional and ethical duty to regulate the market in a way that the vastly excluded population is brought into the mainstream. For this the state has to play a very proactive role. The state should not become an extension of the market to grab land without people’s consent otherwise it will meet with growing resistance as we can see today.
PPP (public-private partnership) is fine if the partnership is between equals anchored on accountability and a share in profits and losses but in no case can it be turned into a tool of looting the family silver. The sham of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) should not even be talked about. Can there be anything more perverse than the fact that the Chairman of Satyam, B. Ramalinga Raju, was chairing the Committee of Corporate Social Responsibility of the CII till the scam broke?
The psychosis of the Indian state caused by economic subversion involves divesting the inheritance and ownership of the economic content of the Idea of India from the vast majority of people of India—the adivasis, the Dalits and other poor and marginalised sections to the exclusive club of the politico-bureaucrat-moneybag nexus through a diabolical combination of subterfuge, stonewalling, disinformation, disconnect and non-recognition of the realities of the underbelly of India. The subterranean impact of this divesting on the democratic and secular content of the Idea of India has still not been fathomed. Indian Democracy has been undermined and the feudal mai-baap attitude of the exclusive club is still impregnable. The first impact is that the passwords of parentage, big money and criminal mafia linkage have become exclusive keys to gain entry into Parliament or the State Legislative Assembles through the political party process. This in turn has led to the intra-party subversion of the democratisation processes, development of democratic structures and delivery of inclusive agendas by the parties. (India’s Communist Parties, though largely immune from the above cited password abuse, have suffered from derailment of intra-party democracy due to other factors.)The second impact is that fascist elements, of many hues and plumes, are digging in their heels into the body politic bidding their time to wrest power at New Delhi, using whatever means they can. Remember how the Reichstag was burnt down? The danger to our secular fabric from the present economic crisis cannot be ignored at all.
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THE big-money media, which has now largely become an adjunct of India Incorporated through direct ownership inroads, large equity stakes, media-corporates’ private treaties for editorial-advertorial-equity trade-offs, open no holds barred ad-spend manipulations and predatory pricing, abets the big picture of India Inc to be hoisted on the country. The big-money media, of course, at times also indulges in very selective and limited tinkering with this big picture to maintain its garb of credibility. Also there is a part of the media, especially the regional press, which is playing a very positive role. But one cannot be naive to think that trivialisation, depoliticisation, 3C (crime, cinema and cricket) domination of media content and metamorphosis by the media of the citizen into a client-consumer are unrelated. While the media goads you through gloss, glamour and razzmatazz to ‘splurge’, the PLU (people like us) syndrome plays out in studios of TV channels, like strutting on some high-fashion ramp with a cordless mike, in replay mode, offering instant solutions and pocket remedies to national crisis form farmer suicides to terror attacks. On top of all this, a fast forward mechanism is unleashed by anchors, in their self-appointed avatars as oracles of public opinion, who do not bat an eyelid, make-up made-up in extreme close-up, in short-circuiting the political processes of a billion-plus nation. The only saving grace is that the reach of these oracles are limited by Below Media Line (BML) and further by the language they use. Forget that the anchors in question would not have even heard of the concept of BML and would be at her or his wit’s end to know that the vast majority of the country (840 million plus) is below that line.
Just take the fate of the two recent reports of the Government of India to underline the point how inclusive economic growth is subverted.
Take the Report of the Arjun Sengupta Committee on the Unorganised Sector based on the Nation Sample Survey’s 61st round (2004-05) which shows that 77 per cent of India lives at less than Rs 20 per person per day. Please do not forget that this is a report about 836 million of our people. It goes under the carpet.
Take the Report of the Planning Commission Expert Group on “Development Issues to deal with the Causes of Discontent, Unrest and Extremism”. The Expert Group (chaired by D. Bandyopadhyay) submitted its report, Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas, in April 2008. It indicts the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh, critiques SEZs and spotlights the complete failure of instruments like the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 and the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980. Please do not forget this is a report about 155 districts and 11 States to which the Extremist Corridor of India now extends. It goes under the carpet.
To illustrate the point further take Health and Education, which are at the core of any inclusive economic development paradigm. First, take Health: though the UPA Government promised to spend three per cent of the GDP on health, still the total public spending is around one per cent of the GDP. The People’s Verdict—a civil society review of the UPA Government’s implementation of the CMP—said in May 2008 that the “spending on health by the Centre is stagnant at about 0.3 per cent of the GDP from 2003-04 onwards”. This review further claimed that government expenditure in proportion to the total health expenditure was “even less than countries like Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Pakistan”.
Let us now take the most critical healthcare delivery programme started by the present government. The GOI launched the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for 2005-2012 in April 2005. The aim of the NRHM is to bring about dramatic improvement in the delivery system of health care in rural India. The Mission seeks to provide “universal access to equitable, affordable and quality health care, as well as to bring about an improvement in the health status of the underprivileged sections of the society, especially women and children”. The annual budget allocation for 2008-09 for this mission was Rs 12,050 crores. One is not doing an evaluation of the success of NRHM here but to buttress the point about the disconnection made earlier. Take a look at the following scenario: last month an apex India Inc federation with sponsorship from GOI, Ministry of Health, organised the “Fifth India Health Summit” on “Optimising Healthcare Delivery in India: A Patient Centric Approach”, in a prime five star hotel of New Delhi. Now look at the twist of the context in this summit communication:
The Indian Healthcare industry is undergoing a radical transformation… (and) is estimated to be US $ 40 billion industry, growing at 15 per cent every year. Today we stand at the threshold of an exciting opportunity to design and engineer sustainable delivery systems, develop numerous commercially viable and customisable delivery formats for the growing, demanding and health conscious Indian populace.
Can you bet that they discussed the NRHM threadbare? Or that how the 300,000 rural women health workers called Asha, will provide frontline healthcare to the community?
Do you think the corporate honchos at this “health summit” had any time for the likes of Dr Prakash Amte and Dr Mandakini Amte working in the backwaters of the country (Bhamragad, Gadchiroli in Maharashtra), who have given their lives to bringing healthcare to the most tormented and marginalised sections of our people? Of course, one cannot expect them to sign a petition for the release of Dr Binayak Sen from the jail in Chhattisgarh. But what about some of the Professors in our top Government Medical Schools and Hospitals just a few kilometres away from the venue of the summitry, who go through the daily grind of treating the miserable rickshaw-pullers and top politicos with the same dignity and respect because of their beliefs and faith in their mission. Like this AIIMSonian, now a Professor at MAMC, New Delhi who has the following written on the whiteboard in his room for all his students to read: “I cannot afford to waste my time making money.” Surely, they can teach us one or two simple things about optimising healthcare delivery. So why do we have to go through this great farce and subterfuge, to sell the idea of medical insurance as the panacea of all ills to go in tandem with further opening up of the insurance sector to FDIs? Yes, that is the way a chain of attempts are made to outmanoeuvre inclusive agendas or even derail the process of inclusive economic growth. Why are we wasting our meagre public resources in terms of time and money of supporting such disconnected activity? I have not heard of a health summit organised by the GOI of all the Docs who are committed to “I cannot afford to waste my time making money” to improve our healthcare delivery system.
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NOW take Education. Our allocation to education is still around 3.5 per cent of the GDP despite the target of six per cent having been set as far back as 1966 by the Kothari Commission. The UPA Government’s CMP had also proposed to spend six per cent of the GDP on education with at least half the amount being earmarked for primary and secondary sectors. However, the civil society review quoted earlier reported that the “combined outlay for the education departments of the Centre and States remain at a meagre 2.84 per cent of the GDP in 2007-08”.
It is estimated that only 56 per cent of children in the age group of five-to-nine are attending schools in our country. And most of these schools are without buildings, without books and without teachers. One is not talking of whiteboards or blackboards. Only less than 10 per cent of university eligible youth have real access to higher education. In October 2007, the Planning Commission Member in charge of Education, addressed the national conference of Vice-Chancellors, called in Delhi to discuss and prepare a higher education roadmap for India. He told the over 300 Vice-Chancellors present that education was ‘divorced’ from the realities of the country. He said that “currently only 9-10 per cent of our students passing out of colleges are skilled enough to get employment.” He further said that a few thousand students passing out from the IITs and IIMs every year will not take India to greater heights. “The fourth largest economy of the world cannot lag behind in education,” he said, adding that the aim in the next five years is to achieve a growth of 10 percent in the enrolment in higher education.
So what do we have right now: a news report datelined the Capital of the country reporting on a proposal of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to convert some Municipal Schools into Shopping Malls. Fortunately the brazen proposal was shot down. This goes without comment. But the disconnect is blatant. We all need to be re-educated but surely not a re-education of the ENRON type.
Apart from manifold increase in public spending on Health and Education, RIEG needs to transform our entire economic agenda. It needs agriculture to be brought centre-stage. A sector which provides employment to 58 per cent of our country’s workforce cannot be allowed to be pushed to the margins. How many more farmers’ suicides will it take to wake us up? What is our perception when there is a waiver of farmers’ loans? Compare it to the endless bailouts that the corporate sector demands and gets on a silver platter.
RIEG needs a total revamp of the PDS with scans to set the alarms ringing when there are leaks. The NREGA’s net has to be widened and strengthened. The roots of the RTI have to be made to go deeper and deeper into our body politic. Prasar Bharati has to be turned into a blue-blooded Public Service Broadcaster from the pretender it is now so that it can become an instrument of empowerment and socio-economic transformation in the country. Community Radio and TV Networks have to do likewise at the micro level. Also IT has to be used more and more to fight corruption and empower people especially in rural areas and marginalised quarters in urban areas. The list is very long. Fifty per cent of our people still do not have access to clean drinking water.
But there are two very uncomfortable areas where intervention is required urgently. First, think of the Lota syndrome: sixtyone years after independence, 65 per cent of our people, that is, 66 crores, defecate in the open. Can you visualise what that means? Two hundred thousand tonnes of faeces is discharged in the open everyday. All this is linked to a very high spread of diarrhea and other gastro-intestinal diseases. This results in a death count of 1000 children per day. The second is about sanitary napkins. Think of our poor womenfolk who cannot use sanitary napkins because they cannot simply afford them. Dirty rags are used which leads to severe infection and even tetanus if there is a metal hook or something in them. Why can’t our scientists of the CSIR come out fast with that Re 1 polymer strip to save these women from this horrid state?
But more than anything else RIEG needs a mindset change. So that we can think and act inclusively and our marginalised and poor citizens and their needs and aspirations can be taken onboard. What better time can there be to change than when there is a mind blowing crisis?
We have three advantages to make this change. First, fortunately, we are still somewhat insulated and not so deeply entangled in the pincer-like grip of international finance capital, so if we need to press the eject button it will work. Second, we have a high domestic savings rate of 35.5 per cent of the GDP which can be harnessed for huge investments in social infrastructure projects to uplift and connect the poor and marginalised of our country and also cushion us from the travails of the flight of foreign investment. Related to this are reports that suggest that NRIs and PIOs in the US and other Western countries are sending more money home as a result of the severe crisis there. The depreciation of rupee and rising rate of interest for fixed deposits in foreign currency have made NRI deposits attractive. Third, 54 per cent of our population is young—below the age of 25. They have tasted pride in India’s knowledge and technology centred achievements in IT and Space, for instance, as well as seen the worst crisis of neo-liberalism at such an impressionable age that they would be enthused to demand a more stable and just international economic architecture externally and build a better, new, inclusive India internally.
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I would like to end with a personal anecdote. In October 2007, I was covering along with my crew, the 340-kilometre march of 25,000 landless workers from 12 States to Delhi demanding land reform. Enroute near Kosi Kanal, a 100 kms away from Delhi, one of the marchers—a frail woman in her forties—told me: we have nothing to lose now, we have already lost everything; you put us in jail or kill us, we will not return empty handed, we want our jal, jungal aur zameen back. I had never in my life seen such a disciplined march—men and women marching in column after column like an army. Their white and green Janadesh flags emblazoned in the flaming sun. They had already traversed more than 240 kms in 18 days. Only two days before, a truck had run into the marchers’ column and killed three of them but their spirits were very high. They represented the last man and woman of our country. It would have warmed the heart of the most cynical of today’s scribes. On my return to New Delhi I read the following comment in a report on the march in a national weekly:
When the marchers finally hit the streets of Delhi on October 29, they will no doubt attract the attention of irate motorists. But will anyone else care, and will their march lead to any concrete action?
The disconnect could not have been more palpable.
In the year of the centenary of Hind Swaraj, the critique of the Western civilisation which Gandhiji published in 1909, can we simply rethink of a model of development where the voiceless are not driven to the wall? Can the marginalised and poor be given access to basic resources of jal, jangal aur zameen to sustain their livelihood? Can we bridge the chasm between a splurging India and a starving Bharat? This is a moment of truth. Moments of truth do not come easily by. Our tryst with destiny can go on and on. But let us grab this moment of truth. So that we can “redeem our pledge”, which has remained unredeemed for more than sixty years, to make conditions for the last men and women representing the adivasis and Dalits, the marginalised and poor people of India to give unto themselves what is truly theirs.
(Courtesy: Economic Journalist, the quarterly journal of the Forum of Financial Writers)
The author is the Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies [Vaikalpik Rananiti Karya Samuh]. He is also the Executive Director and Editor, CFTV News (Citizens First Television News) and an independent documentary filmmaker. He can be e-mailed at suhasborker@ gmail.com
