India’s paradox: Hungama amid hope and growth

Hungama--(mid-2012)

India’s paradox: Hungama amid hope and growth

By Subhash Chopra

India has a long way to go in meeting the basic needs of her people and nobody could be more candid in acknowledging  it than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who, despite his  empathy for IMF solutions to problems, called the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition, especially  among the country’s children, a “national shame.”  This double deficit in  human welfare has rightly acquired the acronym of ‘Hungama, ’ a gigantic issue by any yardstick.

The Prime Minister had no hesitation in admitting that malnutrition among 42 per cent of the nation’s children is “unacceptably high,” but he also reminded that the scourge had declined from a high of 53 per cent over the last seven years.  All that  “Impressive growth in our GDP, ” was not enough, he said while quoting malnutrition figures  from a private foundation’s survey. The media and opposition parties had a field day bashing the government as if they had no part in this shameful phenomenon.  

Home grown criticism, though always healthy, can sometimes lose sight of the

picture in the wider context. Nobel  laureate Joseph Stiglitz, for instance, thinks that  by recognising the Right to Food Security as a basic human right, legislation for which is currently on the anvil,  India is “ leading the way for the rest of the world and is on the verge of a historic implementation of the world’s largest social programme against hunger.” He was referring not just to the right to food but to a slew of similar programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (Nregs) , later named after Mahatma Gandhi.

Putting it in  a comparative context while speaking at the Indian Statistical Institute  in Kolkata, he pointed out that while one in seven Americans today are on food stamps, an equal number still faces food insecurity.  “While India debates whether there should be basic human rights like the right to food, such debates are still not part of the discourse in America.”  Attacking the global GDP  “fetish, ” he said the success or failure of any programmes should be judged not on the GDP growth but on the welfare of the people.

Fellow American and billionaire George Soros, also on a tour of India, said he was ”positive over the long term about India and less optimistic about the US where we are in a political and financial crisis.” The crash of 2008, he said , was the result of a “supper-bubble” that began in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became the US president and Margaret Thatcher was the British prime minister.   The misconception was the belief that “markets correct their own excesses.”  The bubble effect was more in evidence in the US  and  the UK than in the developing economies like India. “When developed countries are facing one of the worst crises, developed countries, India in particular, show an aspiring  phenomenon  of  (handling ) market and democracy.”  

Like Stiglitz , Soros blames the flawed economic theory of market equilibrium as part of the problem in creating booms and busts.”The assumption that markets left on their own will allocate resources efficiently leading to market equilibrium does not work in the real world, as people act on imperfect knowledge and human thinking is indeterminate.” Speaking in Bangalore at the Azam Premji University lecture series, Soros underlined that in a globalising world,  capital will flow to regions where regulations are less stringent, thus increasing the chances of  bubbles  and all the consequent perils of instability.

Asked about his reaction to the prevalence of mass deprivation and corruption in India, British Labour party leader and former foreign secretary David Miliband said anyone visiting India sees a vibrant economy and also a vibrant political system. “That is one of the great things about this country that it has a vibrant political system. It’s a  standing testimony to the value that’s placed on different opinions expressed often with great force and passion. Every democracy is trying t figure out how to make its democracy work better.” There are dysfunctions in all democracies. We have to address them. “In the Indian  system , you have got your own debate how best to do that; you don’t want people coming from Britain to tell you how to do it !”

Another  vote of confidence in India has just come from the World Health Organisation on the  country’s  landmark achievement of eradication of polio in the year just gone by when not a single case of wild polio was recorded. The new milestone  was  reached against the backdrop of as many as 741 cases recorded only two years earlier.

 Lauding India’s efforts,  WHO director general Margaret Chan said, “India’s success is arguably its greatest public health achievement  and has provided a global opportunity to push for the end of  polio (in other countries).”  India’s health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad  claimed,  justly,  “This giant leap towards polio containment in a short span of two years is an endorsement of India’s tireless and persistent efforts.”  Amen! Yet many miles to go.  

Next target : Elimination of Hungama -- hunger and malnutrition, even as India quite realistically hopes for six to seven per cent (6 to 7%) GDP growth while downturn stalks the developed economies of the world.

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