IOS SILVER JUBILEE – IV

The Issue of Development

Dr Mohammad Manzoor Alam

Over the last few years I have been crisis-crossing the country, across big cities, district and mofassil towns, villages and hamlets. I have been interacting with different sections of people during these travels and kept up the interaction through telephone and e-mail.

It was only after these extensive travels and continuous interactions that we decided the theme of our year-long jubilee celebrations: “Knowledge, Development and Peace”. Under this rubric dozens of related sub-themes and allied issues will be discussed over the period, April 15, 2011 through April 16, 2012, at seminars and symposia across the country.

My senior colleagues at the IOS and I intend to discuss some of the basic features and facets associated with the main theme cited above. “Development” being at the centre of the two flanking issues- “knowledge” and “peace” – I propose to share some thoughts on development with you.

Development is a pretty intriguing subject with myriad facets. The questions is: what do we mean by development? Put simply, by development we mean economic progress—better infrastructure like rail, road, airlines, shipping, factories, housing for offices and residence, growing GDP through manufacturing, agriculture, services, business and industry.

From this perspective, India has grown (or developed) over the last couple of decades. Today, the GDP stands at $ 1.31 trillion, which looks impressive on the face of it as it shows the GDP of a population of one billion people. We have grown, and because of the sheer size of the population, the size of the economy looks huge. However, when we look at the per head GDP, it is still $ 1,176. That is, we are still among the poorest countries of the world. The rich ones have a per head GDP of $ 40,00 to $ 100,000.

Even that does not begin to show the real picture. The figure of $ 1,176 is the average, which includes billionaires and multimillionaires. The reality is that about 75 percent of us live on less than Rs 20 a day, while the international poverty line is about Rs. 90 a day. We are not just poor (less than Rs. 90 a day), but desperately poor (less than Rs. 20 a day).

Now, can we imagine nearly 700 million of our people really understanding how on earth we can claim to be an aspiring super power? The fact is that such claims are being made by a handful of people and believed by our relatively better off, well-fed, well-heeled classes. These are the people who don’t take the trouble to go and interact with the millions living in urban slums and mud houses in the villages.

That brings us to the next question: Development for whom? We quickly learn that the elite in India means its own prosperity when it is talking about double-digit development, not that of the toiling masses. When the UPA came to power, it promised us inclusive growth. That growth has not been inclusive is evident from the rising suicide among our farmers – from nearly 8,000 a month it has climbed to 40,000 farmer suicides a month. They are killing themselves because they have been ruined economically and the double-digit growth has not touched them. Growth has been exclusive, not inclusive. The UPA promise has not been fulfilled.

Development is not merely an economic issue, but a political issue as well. The setting up of the developmental agenda and its priorities is a political act. It is politics which decides that children of the elite studying at IITs and IIMs (less well-off parents cannot afford the expenses of elite institutions) get the benefit of government’s indirect financial support. On every student at the elite institutions government expenditure is several times higher than on institutions where commoners’ children study.

It is the political class which decides the priorities of development and its beneficiaries. Some unevenness in development is understandable, but it should not be as warped and distorted as it is in the case of India. It is bad for present political stability and worse for our future well-being.

Another point to be remembered is that mere GDP growth does not provide a complete picture. Development also means human development, which involves access to safe drinking water, reasonable housing, education and health. Security of livelihood, protection from the excesses of police and other state organs, mother and child care and myriad other considerations are part of it.

With the largest number of hungry people, malnourished mothers and children among us, we cannot honestly claim that we are developing meaningfully. We intend to discuss the whole range of allied issues at our seminars and symposia in months ahead.  g