India has always been a country of multiple realities. Different geographical conditions created different cultures, languages and ways of living. With independence, we started to celebrate these differences and felt proud to be the owner of a culture which is so diverse.
With time and learning we have somehow bridged the divide of geographical distances through the idea of a unifying notion called India; but, a deeper and steeper economic divide is still staring in front of us. This inequality of income is fast making India a country of extremes. On the one hand we have one of the richest people of the world living a sheltered and privileged life; on the other a huge chunk of population i.e. 38% still lives in abject poverty comparable to the sub-Saharan African countries. The funny thing about this is the fact that in a city like Mumbai one can actually see both sets of people living side by side. Antillia, the residential building of Reliance Chief Mukesh Ambani built at a cost of over $1billion has a monthly electricity bill of 70lakh, not too far from it is the world’s second biggest slum where at an area of 175 hectares over 1miilion people live in pathetic conditions.
When the swings of the stock market, where hardly 4 percent of the Indian population is listed make the government more concerned than the suicide of 4,453 farmers from a particular region, then surely the priorities of the government are misplaced. After the liberalization of Indian economy in early 1990, the government policies have systematically supported the private capital to play the dominant role in the economy. Although, this has bore fruits and a considerable portion of population has been able to extricate itself from the tentacles of poverty, a large proportion of population is still poor. About one third of the total poor people of the world live here. Why?
The reasons lie in the policies which the government has taken post liberalization. Journalist and the Rural Affairs editor for The Hindu, P Sainath describes in his reports on the rural economy in India,
“ the level of inequality has risen to extraordinary levels, when at the same time hunger in India has reached its highest level in decades. He als points out that rural economiy across the country has collapsed, or on the verge of being collapsed due to the neo-liberal policies of the government of India since the 1990’s. The human cost of the liberalisation has been very high. The huge wave of farm suicides in Indian rural population from 1997 to 2007 totalled close to 200,000, according to official statistics’’.
‘’Although, India has always been an economically unequal country, after 1990 the level of inequality has grown significantly’’, Arup chanda West bengal bureau chief News-X.
According to Gini coefficient, which measures the income inequality in a country, the level of inequality in India has grown significantly after 1990. With a Gini coefficient of 32.5 in 1990-to 38 in 2000, India is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world. Although, the Economy has grown steadily over the last two decades, its growth has been uneven.
According to Payal Malik , assistant professor of Macro Economics, PGDAV college, DU. ‘’Between 1999 and 2008, the annualized growth rates for Gujarat (8.8%), Haryana (8.7%), or Delhi (7.4%) were much higher than for Bihar (5.1%), Uttar Pradesh (4.4%), or Madhya Pradesh (3.5%). Poverty rates in rural Orissa (43%) and rural Bihar (41%) are among the world's most extreme. ‘’
This poverty seems more acute considering the fact that the relative poverty has increased. If everyone is poor, poverty seems to be a natural way of living, but all of a sudden if a select few get rich, the rest will always question and raise voices.
This is a situation which is developing in certain parts of India. The red corridor or the 220 Naxal infested districts of India are an example where due to the apathy of government functionaries and their collusion with the rapacious industrialists to loot out the natural resources, people have started doling out justice through their own hands. Not only are they angry with the policies of the government, but, they are angry with the whole system and ideology itself, which the government follows.
Although Capitalism has done wonders to the western world but in Indian context where the social and economic division of society is so deep, it is slightly immature to assume that the private capital with an 8-9% growth rate will solve the ills of our country. Capitalism relies too much on the cyclical nature of demand and supply of the market and restricts the role of government. Market has a tendency to compare and exclude. For the sake of making a just and equitable society, the tilt of the government has to be towards the society in general, the tendency to give preferential treatment to a particular sector or region could create anomalies which would be very difficult to resolve.
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