The new year 2006 dawned with new talks on the Indian political horizon. While the President Dr APJ Kalam remains cosy with his ‘Visions’, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, is still engrossed in his rightist economist’s mould. The most acute challenge for Indian polity as well as the coalition government is to bridge the galloping divide between rural and urban India.
While the urban India (metropolis mostly) leapfrogged in the last decade, thanks to boom in the service sector, but rural India kept on sleeping into the quagmire of poverty and lack of opportunities. Divide is alarmingly acute. The babus manning India’s economic policies have systematically ignored starvation deaths by tribals, suicide in large numbers by farmers from Andhra Pradesh and Maharshtra, exodus of rural people to urban centres, massive erosion in the quality of life among urban and rural people due to obvious reasons, and worst, lack of symmetry in India’s social and economic growth.
Aping the west has been the easiest way out for the Indian government, and it still remains so.
Sustainable growth has been captive of experts’ past time activities in India, and a photo opportunity for ministers. Hence, S Swaminathan, Sandeep Pandey, Rajendra Singh, Baba Apte and few others remain a miniscule community. The apologists see India’s economic growth in software professionals criss-crossing transnational borders, stock-market peaking record high, mushrooming of shopping malls in metropolis, boom in the telecom sector, and yes, so many young men and women getting jobs in various call centres.
However, it could be explained fairly easily as ministers and bureaucrats responsible for the panning and implementation process seldom come out of their comfort zone in New Delhi and other developed cities. To peep into interiors of India can wreck their comforts!
The Indian government must let many growth centres to take roots in the interiors of India, and most importantly in the socially and economically backward regions. Agriculture and small scale units have to revitalise their economies with much wider participation of people. These centres must set in the process of reverse migration of people. Yes, they will have to compete with the transnational giants, which could be made possible by nurturing niche markets with across the board collaboration among media, government and people at large.
Small islands of self sufficient economies are possible as few examples are already there in India. The need is to take them to higher level. To make effect to this possibility, the babus and netas will need to undergo changeover in their mind-sets and policy approach.
No comments:
Post a Comment