On January 26 the nation celebrated the 61st anniversary of its transformation from a former dominion and possession of the British empire into the sovereign, secular, socialist and democratic Republic of India. Although the republic’s leaders don’t seem aware, public enthusiasm for celebrating this momentous day when free India endowed itself with arguably the most noble and progressive written Constitution conferring universal adult franchise, equality of all citizens, fundamental rights to minorities and equality of opportunity for all, is waning with each passing year, and plumbed a new depth yesterday. A year ago, eight months after the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)-II government was returned to power in New Delhi, the national mood was marked by euphoria and great expectations.
A year later these great expectations have turned into a nightmare. Indeed it is difficult to recall a time — except perhaps on January 26, 1976 during the depth of the Emergency — when the national mood was as despondent as it is currently. Driven by lack of imagination and the force of dead habit, the smug establishment of the Delhi imperium celebrated Republic Day with the familiar ritual of an obsolete military parade down Rajpath, unmindful of the irony of a nation in which one-third of the population is illiterate, 46 percent of child population is undernourished, and over 800 million citizens eke out miserable lives on a per capita income of Rs.20 per day, showcasing its defence expenditure.
There’s much else which indicates that the Republic has plunged off the rails into a train wreck. All the estates of good governance and sectors of the economy are in deep crisis or despair. Parliament has been transformed into a brawling house by the heirs of the Mahatma with the government prevented from transacting any business for 22 consecutive days by unruly members demanding a JPC (joint parliamentary committee) investigation into the 2G telecom spectrum allocation scandal. Even as the country’s 30 million case arrears and the law’s monumental delay has rendered the judiciary dysfunctional, two successive chief justices of the Supreme Court are under suspicion of financial shenanigans and corruption, and Indian industry is complaining about a “governance deficit”. And in debt-wracked rural India where 67 percent of the population is confronted with the insolence of office and the proud man’s contumely and deceit on a daily basis, farmers are killing themselves at the rate of 47 suicides per day.
Confronted with such bad tidings, it’s natural for the dwindling minority of good — and determined to be good — citizens to despair. Yet in grim eras it’s useful to remember that the worst of times can also be the best of times. As the great historian Prof. Arnold Toynbee has amply demonstrated in his monumental work The Study of History, the darkest eras of great civilisations prompt creative response from which flow solutions for curing grave maladies. Readers may rest assured that in several think tanks countrywide (EducationWorld included), there is intense creative ferment which will birth the solutions and remedies required for curing the malaise of this cruelly wronged and wounded civilisation. Darkest nights promise the brightest dawn.
Shocking ignorance of elementary economics
The continuous and sustained rise in prices, especially of food and essential commodities — the fruits and vegetables price index is 19 percent higher than it was at this time last year — is a cruel tax inflicted upon the vast majority of the country’s poor. And the depth of poverty in contemporary, allegedly shining India is chilling. According to the report of a committee chaired by the late economist Arjun Sengupta, 836 million citizens precariously survive on a per capita income of Rs.20 per day. It’s a wonder how the poor make ends meet in a society in which the ruling price of staple pulses has crossed Rs.100 per kg, rice price averages Rs.22, wheat Rs.18 and onions Rs.60 per kg.
There’s a great deal of confusion and misinformation on the cause of this insidious tax on the poor. Yet at bottom, there’s no side-stepping the reality that the roots of inflation can be traced to government profligacy and/or misman-agement of the economy. In the instant case it’s astonishing that the Congress-led UPA-II coalition government at the Centre, headed by an internationally renowned economist, has committed so many sins of economic mismanagement which have ignited an inflation prairie fire.
For a start, the government which has recorded huge fiscal deficits in two successive Union budgets since it was returned to power in May 2009, should have been aware that the massive increase in money supply consequent upon the Sixth Pay Commission award for government employees (Rs.20,000 crore) in 2008-09, and the subsequent payouts under MNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Assurance) scheme in 2009 (Rs.39,000 crore) and 2010 (Rs.40,000 crore) without corresponding effort to boost productivity and production, would exert heavy pressure on prices. Yet no effort has been made to improve the productivity of government employees commensurately with the Pay Commission award. Nor has the UPA-II government undertaken any meaningful initiatives to improve production in agriculture to absorb increased MNREGA money supply and/or upgrade rural India’s pathetic post-harvest infrastructure which inflicts an annual loss of Rs.50,000 crore by way of foodgrains and horticulture spoilage.
Quite clearly there’s been shocking lack of awareness within the Central government of the need to balance increased money supply with greater supply-side productivity and throughput. Consequently, with greater money supply chasing stagnant production within rural India and the economy, double-digit inflation was inevitable.
The national interest demands that wage hikes in govern-ment are linked with increased productivity. Conterminously it’s high time that public pressure is exerted on urban-centric governments in Delhi and the state capitals to seriously address the issue of building rural India’s post-harvest infrastructure to eliminate enormous annual wastage in agriculture. Further procrastination of these vital issues is to throw the populace to the untender mercies of the inflation monster, which is squeezing the breath out of Indian society.