Why we are a poor rich country

In the ’60s and ’70s, this genre of economist was the only kind around in Delhi’s corridors of power because it was a time when we revelled in our poverty. Between Gandhiji and Soviet-style socialism we had learned to glorify poverty and see it almost as being somehow closer to God. Gandhiji may not have intended to do this to us when he insisted on travelling in third-class carriages and wearing only the humblest homespun clothing but it is what happened. Later it got mixed with the austerities of Nehruvian socialism and we ended up with a national culture that saw poverty as a badge of honour. A sort of weird Bharat Ratna.

As someone who has travelled in the poorest parts of our country and seen poverty in all its hideousness, any glorification of it sickens me. Jean Dreze, one of Sonia’s new best friends, may think he shows his depth of character, or perhaps concern, by living in a slum. I see it only as a mockery of those who would give anything not to have to live in such appalling conditions. Unlike Dreze, I would like in my lifetime to see an India in which every Indian lives in a proper house with electricity and running water and perhaps even a fridge, air-conditioning and colour television.

This will happen only when we see poverty as a scourge that must be fought by making the country rich and prosperous. Luckily, by the early ’90s our Leftist economists brought us to the verge of bankruptcy and it was this that forced the economic liberalisation that began in 1991 under the man who is now Prime Minister. As a result, we have taken some hesitant steps towards making India prosperous and the results are there for everyone to see. Our middle-class is now believed to exceed 200 million and the number of people living below the poverty line has halved in the past 15 years. For the 30 per cent who still live on less than a dollar a day it is vital that the State devise ways of lifting them out of their poverty. So it is good that Sonia, as chairman of the government’s National Advisory Council, is taking a keen interest in rural employment schemes and healthcare. The problem is that she and her advisers appear to believe that all we need is more money for these schemes to work.

This newspaper reported last week that she has written to the Prime Minister urging him to give her money for the Rural Employment Guarantee scheme she and her group have come up with and for a new Sampoorna Bal Yojana, a supplementary nutrition scheme and a Public Health Mission. Sonia and her pals have suggested that additional resources be generated through a tax on cigarettes, pan masala, gutka and other ‘‘intoxicants’’.

They appear unaware that the problem is not money. The problem is that the delivery system in most parts of rural India is in such a state of collapse that it does not function properly even in an emergency. The fact that in some parts of India children die everyday of chronic hunger is proof of this.

The problem is mismanaged resources on a scale so horrific that it boggles the mind. Since local politicians make most of their illicit money out of construction, you will see almost not a single village that does not have a building that calls itself a health sub-centre but equally you will find it hard to discover one that actually works. I have seen vast, rural hospitals that are totally useless because there are no doctors and no proper facilities. I have seen maternity wards so unsanitary that if I were a rural woman I would prefer to have my baby at home.

If Sonia is serious about bringing about changes in this abysmal, shaming state of affairs then she should set her National Advisory Council the task of devising ways to take the present delivery systems for health, education and nutrition apart and rebuild them from scratch.

The crisis is so huge that even a dynamo like Sam Pitroda would find it hard to come up with a rectification plan. What is needed is a man like him on the job and not a bunch of jholewalas with their hearts in the right place but their worn out sandals walking the wrong way. If they carry on in the same direction, all we are likely to achieve is the usual lip service in the name of ‘‘poverty alleviation’’ when what we need is a war on all fronts to destroy and not ‘‘alleviate’’ poverty. Until then we are doomed to continue being a poor, rich country.

Write to tavleensingh@expressindia.com