The Great Indian Divide: Govt. makes rich richer, poor poorer
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The Alternative Economic Survey 2006-07: Pampering Corporates, Pauperizing Masses, published by Daanish Books was released here in New Delhi yesterday. The Alternative Economic Survey (AES) has been coming out for the past 15 years, almost coinciding with the year when India embarked on its New Economic Policy following the ‘diktats’ of the triumvirate of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
In contrast to the official Economic Survey, as the name suggests, the AES attempts to give an alternative and “a realistic picture of Indian economy based on an understanding of what benefits the endemically marginalized sections and what benefits the sections who command a major part of the national resources.” Among the participants at the book release function were renowned economists Prof Amit Bhaduri, Prof Arun Kumar and Prof Kamal Nayan Kabra; the legal luminary Prashant Bhushan; and veteran journalist, Prabhash Joshi among others. Speaking on the occasion, Prof Kabra described the state of inequality citing the government’s own findings of 836 million people – a staggering 77% of Indian population that subsists on less than Rs 20 a day. According to him this figure alone is a telling comment on the government’s own precept of ‘inclusive growth’. Giving an example of how the government is pampering the corporate sector, he said, “total tax concessions to the corporate sector is ten times more than what they are putting on the national rural employment guarantee scheme.” Prof Arun Kumar in his remarks was also equally critical of the government’s economic policies. The widely held belief in the government that growth alone is a panacea for all the ills of this country is highly questionable, he said, especially when all costs of this growth are falling on the marginalized sections. To him, this ‘good growth’ is very narrowly confined in certain sectors and this does not touch the lives of large number of people. Prof Kumar also felt that this kind of dramatic increase in inequality has not taken place in any other previous time in the last 60 years. Elaborating on his point, he argued that the corporate sector, which constitutes less than 0.1% of population is earning more than 18% of GDP; whereas till six years back they used to earn about 5%. On the other hand agriculture sector’s share has fallen from 21% to 17%. So what has happened is that less than 0.1% is earning more than what 60% of population in agriculture earns. In the AES the authors have suggested that an alternative pro poor growth path is also possible. Prabhash Joshi dwelled more on the pathetic state of media that has conveniently chosen to ignore the voices of the suffering masses. The media, he said, has become completely subservient to the moneyed class. He added, the media traditionally a tool to change the world, is today being used in favour of those who are against the change. He was agonised that no media is ready to report that the prosperity of this country is happening at the cost of the poor. He warned against the anti-poor policies of the government saying that “the day one crore farmers descend on Delhi or Kolkata not even a single brick of the building belonging to either CPI (M), or the NDA, or the UPA will remain in its place.” He added that the kind of disparity seen today in the country was never there in its entire history. Prashant Bhushan was caustic in his comments on the stock market, which he described as a den of “criminal money”, that is, money made from drug trafficking, bribery, etc. He blamed the government in encouraging such money in the name of boosting investment in stock market. In his concluding remarks, Prof Kumar hoped that this endeavour would be used for purposes of mobilization by the NGOs and various other groups working with the people. |
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