Expert Comment

Where the Left is right

Shiva Kumar

I

What does this reflect? Fanatical proponents of free markets view it as a vote against capitalist expansion. Others see it as a vote in favour of labour power that will be detrimental to industry. Unfortunately, very few regard it a vote in favour of ending human deprivation, discrimination and inequalities. This is the element of socialism in Left thinking that matters most not only to the poor, but to the future of India.

To caricature the Left as being opposed to economic growth and market expansion is absurd. Left intellectuals are principally concerned with people’s livelihoods. More jobs cannot be created unless markets expand. But all market expansion doesn’t create jobs. The Left is opposed to job loss and jobless growth. Their concern is the millions whose very survival has been threatened by the patterns of growth characterising the Indian economy. The NDA government was mesmerised by the quantity of growth. The focus has to be on the quality of growth. Good growth generates jobs, benefits everyone — not just the wealthy — protects the poor, nurtures the environment and reduces inequities. The Left focuses on poor people and their anxieties. And that makes the Left right.

Such thinking is important if India has to become a ‘developed’ country by 2020. A rather simplistic position to take is that if India’s per capita income grows at 3.5 percent per annum, it would cross $735 (Rs.33,000) by 2020, and India can easily graduate from being a low income to a middle-income country. The question however, is whether India can become a developed country just by increasing its annual per capita income to $735. The answer is certainly not.

A developed country is characterised by the quality of life that its citizens enjoy. India cannot aspire to join the league of developed nations with its serious shortfalls in human development. Today, this nation is home to 36 percent of the world’s poor living on less than $1 (Rs.45) per day; 25 percent of global maternal deaths; 23 percent of the world’s under-five child deaths; every year, and 30 percent deaths from poor access to water and sanitation. If India is to stand tall in the community of nations, ending human poverty must become a national — and political — priority. To achieve this, the State has to take the lead, increase its engagement in the social sectors, ensure greater efficiency and better outcomes.

Therefore attaining developed nation status requires addressing four deficits.

First there’s the financial deficit. India urgently needs to increase allocations to the social sectors. Public expenditure on health, for instance, is barely 1 percent of GDP as against 6-7 percent in industrialised countries and over 2 percent in China. Similarly, India is far short of the target of spending 6 percent of GDP on education. In fact, public expenditure on primary education fell from 1.25 percent of GNP in 1990 to 1.08 percent in 1997. Prospects of greater public spending on social sectors look bleak given the high fiscal deficits, mounting liabilities, and rising interest payments. The argument often advanced is that India is too poor to afford the many investments needed to end poverty. This is simply not true. Nations don’t have to first become rich to provide primary health and education. On the contrary, the only way for them to become rich is to first invest in public health and education.

The second deficit is of leadership. Even though India has developed intellectual capability, there is a conspicuous lack of leadership required to harness these capacities constructively towards enhancing people’s capabilities. Post-liberalisation, India has exhibited impressive intellectual leadership in the area of economic reform. But similar intellectual energy and thinking is sorely missing in other sectors including health, education, nutrition, and human rights. The deficiency in leadership is not just political. It is most striking when it comes to government, and is equally noticeable in the private corporate sector, the judiciary, and even in NGOs.

The third deficit has to do with assessment of progress and performance. There is little systematic evaluation of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in human development. Take the instance of elementary education. Despite huge investments and the new momentum to universalise elementary education, there is no systematic data available to show how much children learn and what they learn. Without this vital information, it’s difficult to assess how the formal system of schooling compares with the alternate learning centres that are being encouraged. Without proper data, planning for social sector interventions is haphazard and difficult.

The last deficit is of women’s participation in accelerating human development. The 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments greatly enhanced opportunities for women to participate in local governance. But there’s still a long way to go. Active engagement and participation of women in decision making has much to do with the way Indian society still views womens’ contributions — as being marginal and not quite as meaningful as the contribution of men. There are too few women who are meaningfully involved in the formulation and implementation of social sector policies and programmes. This imbalance needs to be corrected.

Against this backdrop if reducing people’s insecurities and investing in their capabilities is what the Left preaches, that’s perfectly right with me.

(Dr. A.K. Shiva Kumar is a Delhi-based advisor to Unicef and visiting professor at Harvard University)