Opinion Get serious

We are back taking a gamble on the monsoon. Sixty-one years after independence,the rains matter....

June 28, 2009 02:21 AM IST First published on: Jun 28, 2009 at 02:21 AM IST

We are back taking a gamble on the monsoon. Sixty-one years after independence,the rains matter as ever before. Even in May,there were power cuts in middleclass Delhi. Do not therefore take stories of India 2020 taking over this country or that country seriously. Power cuts and water shortage in Delhi are hardly a tribute to India Inc. The poor,of course,dont have electricity but they have to pay through their noses for water.

The problem is that Indias governing elite could not give a damn about how people live. TheyMPs,and MLAs,municipal councillors,apparatchiks of all partiesare not affected by these cuts. They have their ACs and their lawn sprinklers in their Lutyens gardens working fine. They will mouth slogans of inclusive development but not suffer a jot. What is the point of all those sacrifices if one cant be immune to the hardships the ordinary people outside politics (that is 98 per cent) suffer?

Is it credible that when the monsoon is delayed and there is real hardship,the Cabinet Minister for Agriculture is in London? He was notably absent on the issue of farmer suicides and still he has been reappointed to a post in which he signally failed. What is the point of Sharad Pawar? Why does he not just stick to cricket and be done with it? Why do Indian farmers have to bat not even twelfth man but the last millionth in his scorebook? Why doesnt the PMs 100 days programme include sacking Pawar? Is he worried by the nine MPs the NCP has? Is this a serious way of running a government?

As the Budget looms near,I bet all the clamour will be for tax cuts for businesses and petrol subsidy for the middle classes. Of course,the middle classes believe they are aam aadmi/aam aurat. They shout the loudest and frequently get their way. But the consumption standards of the entire middle class are way above what most people in India enjoy. Just think that by the World Bank standards of $1 a day there are 40 per cent plus poor and at $2 a day around 80 per cent are poor. India has just reached a per capita level of $1,000 per year or just under $3 a day. This may not sound like much but if 80 per cent are below $2 and the average is $3,the remaining 20 per cent who are non-poor get almost $ 0 or Rs 400 a day.

The question for Pranab Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh is that what does the Budget do for the 80 per cent who dont drive cars,dont have refrigerators or tapped water? If some group wishes for a tax cut or subsidy can they show where the money will come from? In the UK,we have regularly calculated the distributive impact of each Budget so you know how the bottom 10 per cent fared relative to the top 10 per cent and everyone in between the two ends. Why cant India do that?

If we had a calculation like this,it would show that the poor pay the bulk of taxation. The many indirect taxes fall on the poor as much as the rich,but they fall disproportionately on the former. For all the rhetoric about Gandhiji and antyodaya,the last sixty years have put the poor the last among the claimants of development. Some things have been achieved and the head count of poverty has fallen especially since 1991. Yet,the smugness of the elite is shaming. India still has 60 per cent plus mired in the rural economy where they produce little and starve silently. Industrialisation has not benefited them but only the highly skilled.

India needs a clear road map from this government as to how soon the head count of poverty will get below double digits. This will not be done by patch up schemes like NREGA. An India that can make a nuclear bomb can eliminate child malnutrition and reduce poverty within a generation. Get serious.