news details |
|
|
| Nobody talks of the poor | | | Hiranmay Karlekar
It is remarkable how the eradication of poverty has not been the pre-eminent issue in the campaign for the coming Lok Sabha election. This is in sharp contrast to 1971 when Mrs Indira Gandhi swept the mid-term Lok Sabha poll on the wings of the slogan, “Garibi Hatao.” The question arises: Has the country got rid of poverty?
The number of those who are poor in absolute terms has doubtless decreased. India now has an assertive middle class which consumes compulsively and considers its own advancement in terms of upward mobility and material well-being as the main index of national progress. It also constitutes the most significant component of the print media’s readership and television viewership. Not surprisingly, its goals and aspirations dominate national political discourse. Poverty and disparity feature only in passing.
This, of course, does not mean that poverty has ceased to exist and India is well set on the road to perpetually increasing prosperity. Despite the decline in their number, the absolutely poor still constitute a very large component of the country’s population. The upper and middle classes, absorbed in the pursuit of continuously enhanced levels of consumption capacity, do not notice them. They, however, cannot be wished away. They are increasingly conscious of their rights and deprivations with the information revolution penetrating to hitherto inaccessible areas. This is the main reason why the Maoists are proving so difficult to contain.
Besides, relative deprivation in terms of superior and inferior capacity for consumption remains. Its potential for sparking social tension has been sharply increased by material prosperity and the enshrinement of progressively enhanced consumption as the supreme goal in life and the yardstick for measuring people’s worth, which in turn is a product of advertising, the cutting economy of the consumer culture spawned by the market economy. The result is cut-throat competition whether in the corporate or the professional world or in the bureaucracy and the police, the last two having become overwhelmingly corrupt and criminalised. Even the judiciary is no longer what it was.
The sharp increase in crime is another result. One steals, robs, cheats, murders, extorts or demands bribes to access a lifestyle one longs for but cannot achieve by lawful means. It is remarkable that people consider their positions in terms of those more fortunate than them and not of those who live on the margins of subsistence. This is at one level an indication of their preoccupation with constantly raising their own levels of consumption, which has severely eroded their capacity for compassion except for their immediate friends and relatives. At another level, it has led to resentment and aggression on the part of those frustrated in realising their consumption aspirations. The result is violence against both humans and non-human living beings. The growing incidence of road rage and instances of murder or assault over minor issues, are among expressions of this.
The deification of consumption and wealth has also sharpened their feeling of relative deprivation which has led to both consolidation and confrontation along caste, communal and regional/ethnic lines and competitive collective action for increasing access to the fruits of development — most frequently in terms of reservation of jobs in government establishments and seats in educational institutions.
Caste, perhaps one of the oldest social formations of India with the exception of tribes, is increasingly emerging as the principal basis for segmental mobilisation though communal consolidation along the Hindu-Muslim divide is growing apace and emerging as a close second. As a result, caste, communal, ethnic and regional interests have, in the eyes of many, tended to become co-terminous with the national interest. The rise of ambitious caste, communal, and ethnic/regional leaders has in turn led to a fragmentation of the polity to the detriment of even the coalition politics that has given the country stability for the last 11 years.
The cynical manner in which political parties and leaders have been jettisoning old allies and embracing new ones with an eye to electoral advantage, has left the electorate not only breathless but also confused as to which combination of political parties would form a Government at the Centre after the election and who will be Prime Minister. While Mr Manmohan Singh and Mr LK Advani remain front-ranking candidates, a number of regional contenders have thrown their hats into the ring. This is hardly a situation to be welcomed when the country has to contend with a serious threat of terrorism with neighbours in various stages of instability and internal conflict.
Clearly, India needs to look within and seriously consider not only the culture that the market economy has produced but also the pattern of social and economic development it has followed so that the country does not lose its ability to sustain a national vision and can regard poverty as a national problem requiring serious attention.
This is not to deny the importance of affirmative action in terms for special provision for the advancement of historically deprived sections. Unfortunately, the Mandal Commision’s report, which several important caste leaders on the national stage swear by, does not provide the blueprint for it. Its major flaw is that it does little for the religious minorities, particularly the Muslims, a very large section of whom are severely disadvantaged. They would have benefited had reservation been linked to an economic criterion. There might not have been then any need for a proposal to reserve jobs for them in Government offices and seats in educational institutions, which have aroused strong communal sentiments given the divisive role communal electorates have played in pre-partition India.
The effort to set things right must begin now and one hopes that it is not already too late. The first step should be to base affirmative action on the economic criterion. The second should be the formulation of a philosophy for development which promotes a national vision and overcomes the market economy’s intrinsic proneness to spawn a dehumanising, corrosive and divisive social culture. This can only happen if all living beings are put at the centre of societal concern and people are judged by what they are and not what they possess. It is a tall order but one that has to be met if the country has not to perish through instability and fragmentation of its collective psyche.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
