The occasion of the Independence Day is observed with much fan fare every year and not without good reason. The historic day marked the end of the British colonial rule over India and ushered in the era of a parliamentary democracy giving the people the constitutional right to seek participation in the government. Every year people, from various walks of life, come together in good faith to celebrate this. The long held faith in 'unity in diversity' runs high during such occasions. Celebrations of this sort are important as they remind us of the values for which the nationalist struggle was carried out.
Further, such occasions also offer the critical mind an opportunity to engage in a dialogue and to assess the political and the social concerns of the citizens of India. In the context of TISS, with it being a social sciences institute with a well deserved credibility, it becomes crucial that such discussions too are raised among the students on the occasion of the Independence Day.
For any such assessment it is important to begin with an understanding of how the common people (the aam aadmi in political parlance) live in India. The data published in 2005 by the National Commission for the Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector does not provide a very enthusiastic picture (also in India's common people- Who are they, how many are they and how do they live, EPW, August, 2008). In fact, it suggests that an overwhelming majority of the population, around 85 Crore people, are 'poor and vulnerable' on the basis of their per capita consumption. These results are congruous to the findings of the government's National Sample Survey Organization which suggests that 77% of the population in India has an average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) of Rs.16 per day. On the Human Development Index India has been consistently ranked around 135 over the last few years. This is in contrast to the high growth rates of GDP that the country has seen over the last few years.
Dr. Binayak Sen in a public lecture at TISS last year pointed out that if one looks at the data about nutrition in India one would easily conclude that India is facing a famine like situation. The National Family Health Survey carried out in 2005-06 suggested that 46% of the children below the age three were underweight, 38% were stunted and 19% were wasted.
The condition of the particularly oppressed sections of the society including scheduled castes, scheduled tribe and women is alarming to say the least. The government data (quoted above) suggests that 88% of the SC/ST population of the country forms the bottom most economic group on the basis of Monthly Per Capita Consumption. Further, the cases of the violation of the civil rights of these groups is shameful, to say the least, in a democracy. During 16 years between 1981 to 2000 a total of 3,57,945 cases of crime and atrocities were committed against the SCs. This comes to an annual average of about 22,371 crimes and atrocities per year. In the case of women the condition is all too obvious. Along with a host of societal stigmatization a major lacuna exists in the presence and participation of women in politics and other social arenas.
The World Bank and IMF’s neo-liberal paradigm of economic progress followed by the country from the beginning of the 90s has contributed significantly in creating a crisis that makes the conditions of the vulnerable sections even worse. A combination of moves including the withdrawal of state support for the inputs in agriculture, refusal for conducting large scale land reforms, and forming a market out of essential commodities to be traded freely has created a large scale agrarian crisis reflected in the mind numbing number of farmer suicides. Further, the withdrawal of the state led Public Distribution System and decontrolling of fuel prices has only worsened the condition of the common citizen of the country.
Amidst this the country is seeing the intensification of the Maoist threat, who if successful, envision a single party rule for the country. It is a misconception in the minds of the people that development will placate the Maoists. As is clear in their party programme it is the installation of a single party rule that they are struggling for while refusing that there ever was an instance in the history of the country when it received independence. This inherently negates the only revolutionary gain the people have ever achieved, namely one-person-one-vote. A lack of democracy can never be the hall mark of a self professed emancipatory entity.
The middle class on the other hand is all too comfortable basking in the glory of the imagined ‘super power’ that India is. For them the country is supposedly prospering like never before. This sense of pride both instigates and fuels anti people monstrosities like the Common Wealth Games.
In the face of this, one needs to pause for a moment amongst the Independence Day celebrations and perhaps reflect upon what has transpired in India after independence. The urgent necessity of fighting the colonial domination was strongly channelized into the mobilization of the masses into a struggle. At the same time a significant number of the leadership of the freedom struggle aimed at not just gaining political freedom but also constantly vocalized the necessity of a change in the social structures within India. The vision of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar led to an emphasis on social emancipation and empowerment along with democracy as the founding principles of the constitution. However, a constant recurring of instances of Dalit atrocities, the abuse of tribal rights and oppression of women along with the persistent hunger and utter poverty of the people makes it imperative to deliberate upon the unabated persistence of such social realities in this country.
We invite comments and responses on the state of the nation and seek your participation....
shray mehta
Extremely sensitive and very well written. I think that democracy was supposed to be the means to the larger ends of mitigating injustices, hunger and ushering in life with dignity for all the people of India and not an end in itself.
ReplyDelete-Abhishek Beriya
An interesting and informative article, however, it is marred by one glaring omission: the problems of Muslims is not mentioned even in passing. Forgive me for using a cliche but Muslims in this article are conspicous by their absence. The Indian Muslims community constitutes 13.4 per cent of the national population. Any discussion on India's independence would remain incomplete without taking the issues of the Muslim community into account.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to add, the problems faced by Muslims cannot and should not be seen in isolation from the larger processes at work in the society. Hence, it is essential to locate the deprivation of the Muslims as part of larger injustice and inequality prevailing in society. All marginalised groups - SCs, STs, women, religious and linguistic minorities suffer from such structural inequalities. Thus, what follows naturally from this is that there is a pressing need to form a broad-based alliance which engages in progressive politics to eradicate discrimination and inequalities of all kinds. Now, let me take this opportunity to elaborate on this glaring omission.
One of the greatest threats to an independent, secular and democratic India is the ideology of Hindutva. Although one may argue that the term Hinduvta is misleading because it presupposes that it has the interest of all Hindus in mind which is certainly not true. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to term it as Brahmanism because of its casteist and patriarchal outlook that excluded the dalits and the women. Nonetheless, irrespective of the term we use, the fact remains that the exclusionary and hate politics of Hinduvta poses serious danger to the secular and democratic fabric of our country.
As mentioned above Hinduvta / Brahmanism is both casteist and patriarchal, however, it is also thoroughly communal. One need not elaborate how great the danger of communalism is and how much havoc it has wreaked on the citizens of this country, especially minorities. It would be suffice to say that India, quite literally, has been shaped by communal forces which led to the Partition, which in turn is responsible for the unresolved question of Kashmir.
The problem of communalism is simply not limited to 'sporadic' riots (which are usually state sponsored genocides). Communalism has led to increasing ghettoization and polarization, attacks on freedom of propagating one's religion and, in general, has bred a feeling of animosity amongst communities. One community that has been terribly affected by this phenomenon has been the Muslim community.
Muslims today are the second poorest socio-religious community (SRC) after the SCs/STs. Almost 98 per cent of Muslims are low income or poor. This gives the Muslim community a very distinct class character and it would be misleading to argue that Muslims have a heterogenous class structure like that of the Hindus. In fact, the adoption of neoliberal policies have been detrimental to the poor in general and Muslims in particular.
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As mentioned in this article, the Arjun Sengupta Report highlights the pathetic condition of the informal sector. Muslims have the highest proprtion their workforce in the informal sector. Around 61 per cent of Muslims fall in the self-employed category while 55 per cent Hindus fall in that category. This difference becomes even more marked in urban areas where 57 per cent of Muslims are in the informal sector whereas only 43 per cent of the Hindus are in it. This figure gets worse for Muslim women, around 73 per cent of them are in informal sector and working in househould units. This not only results in low incomes but also in very limited mobility for Muslim women. The converse of this obviously true, that is, Muslims have the lowest share in formal sector. Since they do not have the benefit of any affirmative action they also lag behind SCs/STs. A large share of Muslims is casually employed and in urban areas, only 27 per cent of the Muslims have regular jobs as compared to SCs/STs (40 per cent), OBCs (36 per cent) and Hindu Upper Castes (49 per cent).
ReplyDeleteThe Indian Muslim community lags behind on almost all socio-economic indicators and in many cases it fares worse than the SCs/STs. For example,
* Muslims have the highest number of stunted children (45 per cent)
* The literacy rates of the Muslims have improved the most slowly.
* Muslims have the lowest Mean Years of Schooling (3 years)
* As many as 25 per cent of Muslim children in the 6-14 year age group have either never attended school or have dropped out. This is higher than that of any other SRCs.
In brief, the condition of the Muslim community is appalling and India cannot progress until Muslims lag behind.
Furthermore, I was discussing your write up with a friend who raised two points. The first point was that your analysis which squarely blames the neoliberal regime for the subjugation of the oppressed group is rather lop sided. You need to look into greater detail the exclusionary politics and the strategies (which extend beyond economic policies) employed by the 8 per cent upper castes of the country. Thus, there is a need to identify the oppressed but also the oppressors and expose their methods.
The second point was to elaborate on your assertion that the 'middle class is basking in the glory of India's super power status'. It is indeed unfortunate that the politics of fear is gaining such prominence . The Times of India on 15th August published a survey which said that most of the Indians relate their sense of freedom with the millitary prowess and the power of the State. The majority of the surveyed were comfortable with the idea of phone tapping of citizens by the government. In addition to this, the silence (if not approval) of the middle class on the Modi - style of development is disconcerting. His winning streak is indeed worrying, are we Indians willing to accept a facist sort of development? The way we address this sort of right wing corporate-led model of 'development' willl be a litmus-test for our Indian democratic ethos.
However, these dismal figures should not disheartent us, rather they should act as a catalyst for us to work towards an India where the ideals of equality, liberty and fraternity are not hollow words but a meaningful slogan.
Abdul Haleem Kidhwai
DS II
"For them the country is supposedly prospering like never before. "This line, i feel, articulates a very disturbing trend that is increasingly gaining grounds in the largest democracy of the world. Almost all the measurable indicators of the deplorable standards of living of the majority of this country's populace have been included in this thought-provoking write-up but what about the abstract but rising complacence amongst the Indian middle-classes about the security of their affluence?Thanks to Liberalization, they have now access to international brands and stores, and can admit in surveys that spiraling rise of prices of food commodities, has not affected them at all. and the great Indian Fourth Estate is serving its noble duty of dissemination of truth, very sincerely indeed. it reports with a banner headline when umpteen number of people die in a land-slide but hardly ever endeavours to investigate the neglect towards development of infrastructure for decades which contributed towards worsening the scale of the catastrophe.It, likewise, reports as breaking news if people are run over by speeding vehicles but when does it attempts to upend why does this keeps happening over and over again?and the less is said of growing trend of page 3 reportage, the better it is.
ReplyDeleteWell, i guess that we all know about the increasing' dumping down' that the mass media engages in today, in India. but what is not reflected over often is that how this trend is, in drawing the attention of the Indian bourgeoisie towards trivial issues, is diverting their-our-attention from issues so well-dilated upon in the article above. a major part of the Freedom Struggle was the struggle for greater freedom of the Press in India?But six decades later we see that, like so many other freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution, we have failed to utilise properly the freedom of Press as well.
It is disturbing but important to ponder if the Indian media-atleast, mainstream media- is engaged in what Chomsky described as 'protecting us from seeing what we observe, from knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live?'...
Cooperative Governance: The Middle Path
ReplyDeleteFirst, congratulations for resuming the ‘deliberations’ at ISKRA. By and large it is understood that University years transpire as a persuasive platform for students, to reflect and debate on issues of institutional; socio relational and paradigmatic concerns. Just to reinstate the idea that an individual can emanate vantage points, encouraged by her personal/academic experience and the situated knowledge- thus forming the crux of a dialogue.
The point is, that the critique of the incapacity of the state machinery to effectively galvanise the fiscal resources for the target beneficiaries, shall be cognisant of the fact that the governance today is neither welfarism nor laissez fairism. Thus, divestment of ‘developmental functions’ of the Government to the private sector and the civil society has lead to the depersonalisation of power, least to an extent. This is not to deny that there is no institutional hierarchy - an ‘ideal type’ of parliamentary democracy in which a matrix structure of the government and non government agencies is manifested, actually have rarely emerged. Nevertheless, it does not mean that if the legislature and the NGOs are not at the common dias; will not negotiate on the common concerns.
In this New Public Management, the question arises on the articulation of the social- political demands which stretches consensus across the ideological impressions. It is true that, representative democratic institutions are also being questioned in other parts of the world today. But in India some complacency had existed about the survival and relative stability of our democracy compared to other Afro-Asian countries. This has now given way to cynicism, anger, and even despair, although in general public, may not yet be ready to jettison the system. (Joseph, Sara: 2002).
In this way, when we critique a policy/ government sponsored programme , trying to make sense of the micro and macro economic policies- the overarching idea being accountability and measurement of the performance. Such performance measurement/ analysis allows policy makers, managers, and citizens to evaluate the quality and effectiveness of government services. Therefore, the requirement is to effectively conceptualise the non state sector ( and even the judiciary itself) as a sphere of social management; transparency; public answerability. It is an attempt to move towards associational pluralism (against totalitarianism). This would balance the state powers with an active society- thus encouraging people not as passive beneficiaries but as active recipients.
For an example, the recent proposed 2001 Census report has clubbed women engaged in domestic work with the prostitutes; beggars and prisoners, under the ‘non productive’ category. Certainly this reflects the shocking bias of the government and shall be reprimanded for such callous and insensitive behavior. But on the other hand, the Supreme Court of India, has dubbed the act of the statutory authorities as indicative of a strong gender bias against women. As remarked by Justice A.K. Ganguly, “One has to admit that in the long run, the services rendered by women in households sustain a supply of labour to the economy and keep human societies going by weaving the social fabric and keeping it in good repair. If we take these services for granted and do not attach any value to them, this may escalate the unforeseen cost in terms of deterioration of both human capabilities and the social fabric"
(continued in the next comment..)
Hence, it is to be noted here, that in a democracy if one agency fails to recognise the worth of Gender Development Index, there are other institutions mindful of the gender stereotypes and various other forms of discrimination, effectively questioning the policy principles.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Maharashtra in particular is witnessing fresh protests against the Khairlanji verdict of July 14, 2010 by the Bombay high court's Nagpur bench, commuting death sentence of six convicts to 25 years of imprisonment. Led by senior activists; RTI leaders the demand is raised to set up a judicial commission to expose politicians, who influenced probe.
The above two examples is only an effort to reinforce the idea that in India there is no de jure institutional supremacy- the socio- political agencies have to work in coherence not only as regulators but as facilitators, to ensure that there is no possibility of a de facto either. Keeping in mind the Constitutional supremacy, there is a lot of scope for an open dialogue with the State, which would open a lot of opportunities to achieve optimum utilization of individual talent and available material and social resources.
It is true that, in the era of transnational processes penetrating all areas of life, political transactions have to take place outside the framework of formal political institutions viz. to share a common ground with the non political processes. But again, this is a suggestion for a moderation, and certainly not extremism. The myths of any sort of parallel government has to be strongly debunked. Making a conscious effort towards fostering general awareness amongst the students (rather than just theoretical knowledge), works as an incentive for conscientiously enamored debate. Here, I am impelled to quote a short excerpt from a speech given by a friend, during the Independence day celebrations at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, “There is a very thin line between cynicism and criticism…on this day of freedom I can see the glass either half empty or half full and I choose the latter, with a resolution that I would dedicate myself as a young Indian for the defence of this stand”. Well said!
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Pallavi
Women’s Studies
IInd Year