THE NECESSITY OF INCLUSIVITY

“India is rocking”. That is the general perception maintained by the literate Indian, the middle class Indian, the entrepreneurial Indian and the non-resident Indian and so many Indians having similar thought processes. The eyes of the world are on India. We are consistently growing @ 8.7% average over the last 10 years. We are the second fastest growing economy of the world. High tech and IT I have been identified as Indian competencies. We have the largest number of youth in the world. India has so many good things going for her.

Is this the reality? Does anyone have a difference of opinion?

Some of the facts that are being published by NGOs openly and by intelligence agencies secretly, are very revealing. You would be surprised to learn that more than twenty percent of about 600 odd districts in India had turned RED already. To be specific, around 130 districts in the country spread in many states as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and parts of UP are heavily under the influence of extreme Maoism. Originated as Naxalbari movement some four decades back by Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal and comrades, the movement had spread its wings to the interior villages of India and Nepal. In these districts, these people are taking law into their hands. They are brutally killing anyone who is resisting them; they create fear psychosis amongst public. In many places in Orissa and Chattisgarh, the state administration has come to cease, with Maoists taking the controls.

The rich and the famous do not know this. They do not want to know, is closer to the truth. For them, India is rocking, economy is booming, fashion is spreading, consumer indulgence is peaking, they are frolicking and are moving up and up.

Every country has some people living in poverty. But in India, we have 300 million people who live well below the our own definition of poverty (Whereas internationally a BPL household is defined as one with less than 1 Dollar per day income, in India it is even smaller an amount. Here it is an earning of ten Rupees a day). Opportunities to these people are really lacking. The middle class and the rich hoard the opportunities. And that make them richer and richer and the chasm between rich and the poor is increasing further. Lack of Democratic governance gives the manure to corruption, nepotism and favoritism. The dalits, the tribal and the minority are marginalized in the process. More Nandigrams occur, more farmers commit suicide, more dalit women get raped and more villagers die of dreaded diseases due to lack of medical facilities.

On budget days, every finance minister of the States and Center, with populist offers, plays to the gallery, by announcing this and that yojanas, amounting to billions of Rupees, meant exclusively for the poor. But it hardly reaches the poor, and in the name of the poor, the corrupt politicians and greedy middlemen amass all that. Is there a monitoring system available to ensure that the provisions made in budgets reach to whom it is targeted for? And, if it is really reaching the poor, the downtrodden and the minorities, then why do they take to the arms?

Politicians and leaders use the word inclusivity, started originally by welfare economists such as Amartya Sen, as a mere lip service. In fact the inclusivity was never there, both economically or socially. The dalits are dalits, the poor turn poorer and caste ism continues to be at the core. So what is the aftermath? More and more Maoists get formed across villages and districts. More terrorism, more killing, more administration paralyzing will continue to occur all over. When it reaches the critical mass (has it not reached yet? Twenty percent is not a small number, mind you), emergencies and curfews would get declared, police and army will roll in to the streets, guerrilla warfare will get started and anarchy would come into being. Economic progress would get arrested for good and the country will go to dogs. There are plenty of similar examples, even in our neighbourhood.

Proactive measures are much better than reactive measures. The opinion of inclusivity must gain more and more momentum. It must spread something akin to what is happening to the messages of global warming throughout the world. People should stand up and take notice. Democratic governance must come into being. Corruption must be put down and if governments want to take stern action against the corrupt and the nepotic, it must be done, of course, without looking at the faces.

Friends, inclusivity is a necessity now. If we do not do it now, we will have a big price to pay, in about 5 to 10 years. This is a choice that we all have to make. The sooner it is, the better.