Rural India is grappling with numerous problems, especially those related to lack of resources. Water is getting scarce, and rural credit has run into serious difficulties. While old delivery systems are breaking apart new ones are not fully in place. The public investment has completely collapsed. Grain surpluses are becoming a burden. Biosafety standards and genetically modified products are in the drivers seat. While looking after the science and technology ministry I had asked those concerned with the environmental section to involve agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan. He did but not much came of it. While the world has intensely debated most of these problems we seem totally unconcerned in India. Reason: charlatans parade as experts. Meanwhile free trade brings them to our kitchen, but not the garden. In May, the National Sample survey, which keeps on chugging away regardless of fear and favour, was celebrating its jubilee. I was summoned to Delhi to chair a seminar where the best and the brightest were to cogitate on poverty. I deliberated since my last piece on the subject was published in a referred journal in 1994. But I was told that since the Task Force on poverty line produced under my chairmanship in 1978 was still enduring after several reviews, so I had better be present.µ I was back again to my old interests. The morning began with the minister being badgered about not giving enough autonomy to data gatherers, which he politely brushed away given the nature of the occasion. There was a tendency in the seminar to push in the direction of showing that poverty had gone up in the nineties. Since poverty estimates are derived every five years from the consumption surveys I was sceptical of such quick generalisations.µ I was, however, told that such conclusions emerged out of the thin samples, conducted annually. Thin samples, as far as I know, do not permit such comparisons. Anyway, the thin sample results last time contradicted the five yearly results. At best, I was made to feel one was a prude. At worst, against the poor. Poverty has reduced but there are still many millions who go to bed hungry. Also, there is no reason for the poor to go hungry in a country which produces enough food to feed them.µ The first lot of the five yearly survey results do show that poverty rates have gone down. At least for the first two rounds. Remember last time around the next two rounds showed that the decline in poverty was even higher than that shown by the first two rounds, although that need not be necessarily repeated. Those who used the thin sample against past evidence have much to answer for. There were others who said that as the nineties was a period of liberalisation, poverty has to be wiped out. They were not to be bothered by facts. While one famous scholar made this a self evident proposition, a hack, who supported him, argued that per person supplies were going up and so poverty must be much lower.µ Thirty years ago one of India's most careful statisticians had shown that the only conclusion that could be drawn from such differences was that the two measures came from different methods of estimation: one from supply and the other from household consumption. Each is useful for its own purpose. Mony Mukherji's careful warning was for a civilised era. These are the days of instant conclusions. The television has made it worse: two lines from the friendly news reader, and after a short break, zoom in to the views of expert. Anyway you can't wait, for havn't you heard there is a global commitment to eliminating poverty and even providing safe drinking water to the poor! Dollar denominated consultants need data in the information age, `thin', inconsistent, anecdotal or otherwise. Fortunately, this is also the land of the saints of the bhakti movement: of Tulsi Dasji, Kabir and Rahim. The revolt against Brahminical formalism also took place in this country. The field workers and IIMA's Girija Sharan had a list of thousands of dedicated souls with science education, working away in villages, asking the question tell us what to do? They simply knew who were the poor. Last week, in a meeting organised for rural development, experts such as Atul Sarma and Narayana came out with an amazing insight: education removes poverty. Isn't that intuitive, why do you need research to prove that. Someone will now do tremendous amount of work to come up with an equally intuitive conclusion: that employment and access to land or other resources is important. We do not need experts anymore. Dear reader, follow your own gut feeling when it comes to identifying the poor. More often than not, you will be right.Poverty has reduced but there are still many millions who go to bed hungry
