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Talking Budget
WSN Bureau
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If Indian TV channels can actually
afford to have so many programmes on cookery and the editor of a
major English-language newspaper can actually write a column on
exotic food, if TV can find time and slots for programmes on
five stars in the country, if English-language newspapers
regularly publish news about best pizza available in the city,
and if page after page of newspaper supplements can be devoted
to fashion shows, than how is this not news that Ram Dulari did
not cook meals for three days in a row or that little Kaalu
would not go to school for the next full week since the
rainwater has submerged all the classrooms?
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 As this edition
will be in your hands, all talk in
India
will rivet on the annual Budget. Some of the earlier romance of the
Budget is gone, but it nevertheless remains important as an occasion
for broad policy statement. Every budget exercise is an opportunity
for the government to clearly state its broad financial parameters
and the direction in which it wants to take the country ahead. In
1991, and from then onwards, government of
India’s
budgets clearly denoted that the country was headed towards
liberalization and globalization. Now that
New Delhi is
making a lot of noise about the underprivileged and disempowered,
will the new budget actually signify such concerns?
Unfortunately
from all the signs emerging so far, there is hardly any reason for
celebration. It seems not only nothing has changed but rather the
government has only become more blatant in its approach towards
those who have been pushed to the margins.
Every year, just
days before the final budget, the finance minister of India
dutifully invites the corporate honchos. This year too, Pranab
Mukherjee has gone through the detailed exercise of meeting interest
groups who have a stake in the budget. And, as every time so far,
this year too the finance minister has met the rich, who have a
voice that can be heard not only in person but also through the
print media, television and glossy reports and documents.
 The rich and the
powerful have a serious stake in the economy and therefore on the
budget, and are lucky enough to get their voice heard. Some of them
include industry and trade associations, who get a slotted time to
meet the FM and make their demands. Luckily for them, again, most of
their demands get accepted.
Unfortunately
for the FM, there is also another group, poor, disadvantaged,
discriminated against and often facing oppression and "Operations"
by the government, which has not got a slotted time or a hearing
from him. Nor has the FM bothered to call any representatives of
such groups. Unfortunately, again, the FM has to grapple with a
post-liberalisation, post-globalisation, and crisis-strapped economy
— and so conveniently ignores the poor and the disadvantaged. One
thing the finance minister does not do every year at Budget time is
to call the scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) MPs for a
discussion, even on issues related to the SC component plan and the
Tribal sub-plan. Even though the minister may not need to talk to
these communities, the SC and STs are desperate to talk to him.
Why?
If Indian TV
channels can actually afford to have so many programmes on cookery
and the editor of a major English-language newspaper can actually
write a column on exotic food, if TV can find time and slots for
programmes on five stars in the country, if English-language
newspapers regularly publish news about best pizza available in the
city, and if page after page of newspaper supplements can be devoted
to fashion shows, than how is this not news that Ram Dulari did not
cook meals for three days in a row or that little Kaalu would not go
to school for the next full week since the rainwater has submerged
all the classrooms? Of course we understand that if Indian media
actually starts giving out such news, then there will be virtually
no time and no space for stories about fashion, exotic food and
Bollywood stars.
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The
World Bank estimates that
India
is home to one-third of the world's poor, with nearly 46 crore
people or 42 per cent under the global definition of poverty. Forty
six per cent of the world's malnourished children are Indian. In
1991,
India
ranked 121 out of 160 countries in the Human Development Index. Two
decades later, we are at 134, among 182 countries. Therefore, the
findings of the PM-appointed National Commission for Enterprises in
the Unorganised Sector, which showed that 77 per cent of Indians
survive on less than Rs 20 a day, are no surprise. But India’s
Finance Minister has no time to speak to the disempowered. |
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But then budget
making is very serious exercise. After all, the Finance Minister has
to at least show that he did take into account the concerns of the
marginalized. Why then does he not call the representatives of the
poor?
These are
testing times for India's hapless adivasis. The government has given
a clear nod to eliminate the Naxals (or to eliminate adivasis?)
through Operation Green Hunt. One section of opinion views this
operation as an attempt to release the full potential of mineral
wealth to private parties, a potential otherwise locked and blocked
by adivasis — and accuses the present home minister (interestingly,
a former finance minister) of having a personal stake in such an
operation. So the poor FM, tethered neck and feet to the continuing
privatisation regime, is helpless and does not even bother to plan
interventions that would wean away adivasis from the Naxalites. The
unprecedented urgency with which UPA-II has quickly drawn maps of
the "red corridor" and the haste with which such an operation is
pushed will make the entire effort counter-productive unless there
is well thought-out planning and large-scale financing for adivasi
upliftment. There is no question here of justifying the Naxalites'
ideological and political infantile disorder — but a simple
understanding does not penetrate the core of UPA-II: an operation to
eliminate Naxalites will invariably eliminate a large chunk of
adivasis. It will be like the elimination of the Tasmanian
Aborigines by the Europeans who colonised
Australia.
Therefore,
before attempting to flush out the Naxalites to create the free
entry of neo-colonial private parties there should be sufficient
debate on the ways and methods of liberating adivasis from economic
exploitation, social exploitation, deprivation, discrimination and
denigration. Such planning, of course, starts with the FM: and one
way is to invite Dalit and adivasi MPs for discussion before the
budget. Before this invitation the minister should ensure that he
has read the report of the national commission for enterprises in
the unorganised sector instituted by UPA-I, the reports of the
national commissions for SCs and STs, and the reports submitted by
the parliamentary committee on SC/ST welfare. It is now a very
well-known fact that the processes of privatisation, liberalisation
and globalisation have devastated the lives of Dalits and adivasis
and made them far poorer than they were earlier. Such facts are
often denied by corporate groups but they do not have any data to
prove their denial — even after the famous report of the national
commission on enterprises, where it was announced that 76.7 per cent
of the population of the nation is poor and vulnerable, 55 per cent
of the population is marginally poor and vulnerable. It is easy to
understand that such poverty and vulnerability is induced by the
policies of liberalisation and privatisation. Further, only 11.2 per
cent per cent of SC/STs are "middle income" and only 1 per cent fall
under high income shows that 87.8 per cent of Dalits and adivasis
are poor and vulnerable. (45.2 per cent of upper castes fall under
the middle and high income bracket.)
 These are the
facts; the failure of UPA-II to focus on integrating Dalits and
adivasis into the economy is glaring. Only 1.4 per cent of adivasis
and 2.8 per cent of Dalits have formal skills — yet "skill
development initiatives" that have not seen the light of the day do
not focus, from the very beginning, on skill impartation to Dalits
and adivasis. The NREGS falls miserably short on work given to
Dalits and Adivasis.
The exercise of
SC and ST sub-plans has become mere jugglery of data and statistics
to "prove" that sufficient funds are spent on Dalits and adivasis.
The irony is that the overall allocation to the ministry of social
justice and empowerment actually fell — including to core schemes
such as post-matric scholarships, Rajiv Gandhi scholarships for PhD
students, and others. Uplift through encouraging economic activity
fails miserably — because the capital outlay for such schemes is set
far too low. Ironically, banks do not fear that a Rs 100 crore loan
to industry might become a non-performing asset, but are very scared
that a loan of Rs 25,000 to a Dalit or an adivasi may end up like
that. Similarly, the government handed thousands of crores to the
corporate sector as a stimulus package but has not given a copper to
Dalits and adivasi defaulters on loans.
The budget
session of Parliament has begun with the customary address by the
President. Food prices in India are going through the roof. The
government's failure to control this price rise is not because of
any budget proposals. It is because of its refusal to undertake the
obvious measures that are needed. For one, much of this price rise
is due to speculative commodity trading. Trading corporates have
reported profits ranging from 150-300 per cent while foodgrains
prices have been rising at an annual rate of nearly 20 per cent.
For the Indian
media this is not an issue. Further, this rise in prices has been
due to extremely injudicious decisions taken by the government. One
sure way of containing prices would have been to strengthen the
public distribution system and sell foodgrains at controlled prices.
Acting quite to the contrary, the government decided to reduce the
release of foodgrains for above the poverty line population (APL) to
the tune of nearly 70 per cent.
A majority of
the people are preoccupied with seeing if the budget will initiate a
new process of inclusive growth that would be a departure from the
last two decades of liberalisation. When Manmohan Singh as the
finance minister ushered in the neo-liberal regime in 1991 with the
budget that year, it was officially estimated that 34.5 crore of
Indians were below the poverty line, nearly 41 per cent at that
time. In 2009, according to the latest Suresh Tendulkar Report, 37.2
per cent of India or 43.8 crore are below the poverty line today.
While percentages may serve academic analysis, the real world sees
absolute numbers. These two decades of neo-liberal economic reform
have seen nearly 10 crore more Indians sliding into poverty.
The World Bank,
however, estimates that
India
is home to one-third of the world's poor, with nearly 46 crore
people or 42 per cent under the global definition of poverty. Forty
six per cent of the world's malnour- ished children are Indian. In
1991,
India
ranked 121 out of 160 countries in the Human Development Index. Two
decades later, we are at 134, among 182 countries. Therefore, the
findings of the PM-appointed National Commission for Enterprises in
the Unorganised Sector, which showed that 77 per cent of Indians
survive on less than Rs 20 a day, are no surprise.
The big question
for India before this budget is whether it will change the
trajectory of the last 20 years and move meaningfully towards an
inclusive growth path.
(The article
draws heavily from well articulated views from the two left parties
in India through various news media, particularly D Raja of CPI and
Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M), apart from taking in the concerns
expressed by many in the civil society.)
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Kolkata Group demands
universal, justiciable food entitlements
WSN Network
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The Kolkata Group is an independent
initiative inspired and chaired by Nobel Prize-winning
economist Amartya Sen. Once a year, it brings together
participants drawn from various fields to explore the many
inter-connections between inequality, deprivation, human
development, and democracy. Its special focus has been on
examining ways of advancing people’s health and education.
The organisations supporting the Kolkata Group are UNICEF
India, Professor Sen’s Pratichi Trust, and the Harvard-based
Global Equity Initiative. The Eighth Kolkata Group Workshop,
chaired by Professor Amartya Sen, was held in Kolkata on
February 15-16, 2010. |
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 This
year’s workshop, the eighth in the annual series, was on
“Eliminating Injustice.” It was structured broadly around the
themes explored in Professor Sen’s most recent theoretical work,
The Idea of Justice (Allen Lane,
Penguin Books, 2009) and, like earlier workshops, drew on
insights gained from surveys, other kinds of research, and
practical experience. The two-day workshop, structured into five
sessions, began with a discussion of the different dimensions of
injustice and addressed the challenge of eliminating injustice
in the areas of elementary education, food and health, women,
work and care, and tribals, Dalits and minorities.
The theme this
year was “Eliminating Injustice”. Over fifty participants from
different walks of life — policymakers, opinion leaders, social
scientists, scholars, activists and development experts — met to
discuss dimensions of injustice relating to elementary
education, food security, health, women’s work and
non-discrimination.
On the basis of
extensive discussions on the exceptionally high levels of
under-nutrition in India, particularly among women and children,
the Kolkata Group argued for a firm recognition of the right to
food in general and comprehensive legislation to guarantee the
entitlements to food for all. Recent experience (including
Supreme Court orders on the Right to Food as well as the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) shows the value of
putting economic and social rights in a legal framework.
Legislation should recognise that food and nutritional security
depends not just on food but on a set of related interventions
that promote women’s health and nutrition, safe drinking water,
proper sanitation and health care.
The Kolkata
Group argued for creating durable legal entitlements that
guarantee the right to food in India. A Right to Food Act
covering justiciable food entitlements should be
non-discriminatory and universal. Entitlements guaranteed by the
Act should include food grains from the Public Distribution
System, school meals, nutrition services for children below the
age of six years, social security provision, and allied
programmes.
Ensuring
non-discriminatory access and universal entitlements requires
special initiatives that focus on the discriminated,
disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in society.
Last but not
least, design and implementation should include effective public
participation, grievance redressal provisions and independent
monitoring.
Among those who
attended the Kolkata Group Workshop, in addition to Amartya Sen,
were Sabina Alkire, Sudhir Anand, Shabana Azmi, Amiya Bagchi,
Jasodhara Bagchi, Alaka Basu, Anil Bordia, Sugata Bose, Asim
Chakraborty, Lincoln Chen, Seema Chishti, Abhijit Chowdhury,
Nandita Das, Asim Dasgupta, R. Govinda, Saibal Gupta, Syeda
Hameed, Rounaq Jahan, Surinder Jodhka, Poonam Muttreja, Rohini
Nilekani, Biraj Patnaik, N. Ram, V.K. Ramachandran, Mala
Ramadorai, Kumar Rana, Abhijit Sen, A.K. Shiva Kumar, Shanta
Sinha, Rehman Sobhan, Madhura Swaminathan, Sharmila Tagore,
Sukhadeo Thorat and Sitaram Yechury.
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24
February 2010
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