Development for a few & misery for millions

                                                                                   

                                                     WHITHER DEVELOPMENT?                                                                                                                                                                    -SANJOG MAHESHWARI

              Economic growth and development should not only be balanced but must also blend with equitable distribution of the wealth so earned among various sections of the society. Quite opposite to it, in our country, just to impress the gullible  common man, higher growth rate is achieved easy way by augmenting industrial production of the luxury goods and neglecting totally the farm or agricultural sector, resulting in  the rich getting richer and the poor-poorer. This is how, while they glibly boast of Industrial growth at 17.6% in April raising hopes of an 8.5% GDP growth rate in the current fiscal, do not talk about the health of the farm sector even in muted whispers.   

             

              Thus this prosperity for less than 10% rich, powerful and privileged has not only made the poor still poorer, but also robbed the middle-class India off its tranquil, peaceful quality life, infesting it instead with perpetual tension-filled days (and nights) with no respite in sight. The quality of life of educated urban middle-class and the poor in our country is held hostage to the higher and higher standard of living for less than  10% rich, mighty and elite of the country, who corner 90% of its wealth and scarce resources. For the teeming millions living below the poverty line, and the middle class educated urban India, growth is a mean dreaded word which means their ruthless exploitation by the less than 10% rich, mighty and powerful.  This lop-sided growth is reflected in the mindless unplanned and grotesque RCC jungles, that despoil the urban landscape of the country,  which is getting uglier by the day.  All the big cities are bursting at their seams; straining to the limit their extremely fragile infrastructure.

             

              The quality of life of the nation as a whole deteriorates if the development is not tempered with equitable distribution of  the national wealth and natural resources as they belong to the nation as a whole and, not  to the few rich and powerful only, which, unfortunately, has been the case with our country ever since independence. (The country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru- a self-styled Fabian Socialist – in actual practice promoted what may be called ‘ State Capitalism’  in its worst possible form. On the one hand, he,  created hundreds of ‘white elephants’  in the form of non-productive, corruption-ridden giant industrial units in the public sector, and network of uneconomic, not even self-supportive, and wasteful autonomous bodies like C.S.I.R etc., besides multiple hugely resource-guzzling ceremonial so-called democratic institutions, and on the other sounded the death knell of the agricultural sector through  sheer neglect and indifference to it. 

             

              The successive governments at the Centre,  as also in several states, not knowing what better to do, enthusiastically and  blindly followed all his policies and programmes - right  from total neglect of the agricultural sector, small scale irrigation projects and agro-based industries, to his political creed of cultivating, fostering, nurturing and nourishing the minority (read Muslim)  vote-bank through an incremental and expanding quota/ reservation agenda, which they further fortified by including several other identified targeted groups also in the privileged club of beneficiaries, that generally gets expanded by the inclusion of yet some other community or communities, usually in the run-up of general elections.

             

              The mindless pursuing of these faulty economic policies through all these years by the successive governments at the Centre and the States, has resulted in the worst form of lop-sided development and grotesque urbanisation. We rejoice the factory output expansion at 17.6% raising hopes of 8.5% GDP growth rate in the current fiscal, but what about farm sector expansion? In a predominantly agricultural country like India(proud inheritors of pastoral culture fostered and patronized by Lord Krishna himself), farm sector should have engaged more attention of policy-planners and public alike than the industrial sector but, as explained above, the opposite has been the case ever since Independence. The process is continuing unabated.               

             

              The total neglect of the agriculture sector is responsible for the sky-rocketing price rise of all the essential commodities and basic necessities of life.  Further, in part, this also explains the paradox of as many as five Indians (gracing?) the exclusive, exalted and distinctive club of ten richest persons of the world while more populous China with a decidedly far  better, the most vibrating, and fastest growing economy in the world, has not even one there in it. Not long ago, a nation of opium-eaters, which was brought under the Communist rule in 1948- almost about a year after India gained Independence-is now miles ahead of us in economic growth and implementation of schemes of population control. Is this not a sad commentary on the state of affairs in our country?

             

              Unlike in India, the poor, unprivileged and the middle-class there is not driven, coerced and cornered to subsidise the five-star life-style of the rich, mighty and powerful through the interplay of free market forces and the State’s faulty economic policies; even though the diabolical materialism  has long come to stay as the presiding deity of their economic growth.   In our country also the culturally induced old resentment about crass consumerism and diabolical materialism is slowly but surely getting enfeebled by the day.

              As explained above, the GDP growth rate inching towards 8.5% after recession, may sound good, though it is an out and out deceptive perception. Immediate course correction, through an focused approach towards reforming, improving and revitalizing the farm, poultry, agro-based, labour-intensive, small and medium scale industry and promoting green industries, is called for. Increasing industrial output by inviting foreign moneybags and multinationals to manufacture and produce swanky car models is tantamount to duping the country as it exposes the people to still more miseries.  As a result, we are now witnessing a phenomenon where cars are eating away the roads, and, in turn, the roads rapidly devouring the rich and fertile farmland with demonic appetite.

             

              The prices of all the essential goods and bare necessities of life are already going through the roof rendering life extremely miserable for the common man.(Food inflation rate in the neighborhood of 20%!)  The middle-class educated urban youth is also leading the  most stressful life, as there is no law to regulate his work conditions in the Industrial units.  

             

              Further, the paradoxical irony of the lop-sided development in which the growth rate in the Agricultural sector, in a predominantly agricultural economy, has been steadily nose-diving from zero percent to the negative figure of(-) 2% or more  while factory output registering expansion at 17.6% could obviously be the sure recipe for the rise and rise of Nexalite and Maoist insurgency in the country.  The blame for which lies squarely with the  government itself for pursuing faulty  economic policies. 

             

              We should counter these maladies by (1) Reversing this trend of lop-sided development and concentrating on the Agriculture sector. (2) Introducing farm reforms in a sustained manner, (3) improving storage capacity and facilities for the farm products as well as irrigation system, (4) Focusing on sustainable development and  promoting labour-intensive and green industries, (5) Guaranteeing security of service, regularizing the work timings and regulating the work and employment conditions  for those working in private, semi-organised and unorganised sectors and ensuring them the work conditions, at par with those in the government service. 

             

              Our mind-set should also change.  We must eschew crass consumerism and materialism.  If the ancient Indian wisdom and the accumulated experience of millennia are to be believed, happiness lies in minimizing the wants and, not in multiplying them. It consists not in having many things but in needing a few.

                                                                                                            -SANJOG MAHESHWARI