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| Slow rural progress is a reflection of poorer attention | | |
By Khushwant.S. Ranial
Not long ago, economists quoted “stagflation” a type of situation where inflation and stagnation co-existed at same time and place although, a different opinion used to be held till then considering two phenomenas completely different and contradictory. The present prevailing scenario is almost same in which both contradictory phenomena are treading on simultaneously. After 62 years of independence, improper due attention, ill planning and lack of sincere will has made the rural sector an island of poverty. One can easily gauge the scale of difference in the over all growth and development in different spheres of life. No doubt, same elements attribute this backwardness and widened gap due to poor growth models adoption by us to remove the floating gaps. Generally, wrong theory, wrong technology, over dependence on foreign systems than relying on our own planed structural available set up, planner deep inclination to assure rather building model objects such as removal of unemployment, under-employment, lessening rich-poor gap have also added to the uneven economic development and social unrest.
An analysis of the study reveals that power elite is not truly concerned over this issue. They fail to find any reason behind the checked growth rate of rural economy, which is consistently pushing mass population below poverty line. It sometimes looks as if planner’s energy is bent on rationalizing the dual structure which makes it more exploitative and less serviceable. On the political front, coalition government formation over and again in last one decade both at the centre and in the states manifests itself that politicians due to their self centered attitude have suffered deep amount of alienation from the masses. Thus, the result of their indifferent attitude has led to formation of big industrial complexes, capital intensive malls, shopping complexes, sophisticated borrowed foreign technology not only for the production of capital but even consumer goods. The biggest irony is that 3/4th of our economy is labour intensive, purely, depending on primitive technology and has low productivity. Moreover another apathy is that majority of the available labour force is totally disorganized, being spread over millions of units of production, farms, small industries, self-employed workers and since being non-technical secures low wages not abling them even to meet today’s inflationary meter.
Realising the gravity of the issue, way back in early eighty of nineteenth century, an endeavour was made to restructure the system that could help I shaping the life of poorer section of Indian society but nothing much success was gained on the account of the fact that old legacy of bureaucracy prevailing in the britishers era operated in the same vein for the upliftment of poor, resulting ever widening cleavage continuously to survive. The general experience observed so far has been that owing to corrupt malpractices and leakages at every front of delivery systems and in effective administration, what ever little in done in the name of rural programmes has failed to improve the distribution of income. The net result is well before us. Since political parties handle via ruralite power set up, it has been found pragmatically pitted against the weaker ones and the under-privileged. So the best way of improving the plight of down trodden is by converting political administration and social structure. Mostly existing models of democracy exclude direct participation rather than of more representative democratic set up, are deliberately developed at the grass roots and local bodies are really offered enough political and financial powers, the poorer section will have a ready mechanism through which they could organize themselves in defence of their interests. Gandhiji had conceived the ideology of devolution of powers to ruralites through panchayat raj system like grass root level institution but it is a matter of sordid affair that wherever it is made applicable, decentralization alongwith democratization has stood in the way of the poor benefiting from the process of social and economic development. However the larger resources still have the desired equalizing effect only if there prevails an organized pressure group of beneficiaries to counter act against the administrative deficiencies and in opposition to the vested interests. So what is relevant is whether the rural poor, who are exploited both by the urban and rural rich, can organize themselves so as not only to defend their interests but also to choose their allies for different kinds of situations.
The best possible solution of this intricable issue is to advocate traders-farmers union to cover unemployed, educated as well as uneducated, unskilled labour forces. The very fact that rural workers are not spatially concentrated makes their being on traditional trade union lives a hopless enterprise. That was one of the reasons that Karl Marx refused a radical character to the peasentry. Even cooperatives formation, could not made much headway owing to the reason that rural poor are generally kept out of the cooperative movement. So to, overcome all mess, there should be certain modifications of the existing policies, resource allocations, choice of technologies, better and administrative coordination, transparency in acceptance of faulty existing loopholes, mobilization of political parties in terms of their objectives of acquiring a mass local bodies participation, agricultural subside in different sectors like fertilizers, power and transportation etc. Unless a new scheme of thing woven only around mass involvement and participation of poorer section of the society is dealt vigorously one cannot hope sea change. A new concept of organizing them around those programmes which only meant for their growth, development, upliftment removal of poverty, thus starting with least irk the existing power structure, has to be framed, initiated and expanded. This is a strategy of non-violent revolution and self reliance and hopefully this type of approach can generate dividends.
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