Hijacked - Mexican style
By Ashok Khosla

Take a look around you.  Regions like Bundelkhand and Kalahandi that were lush forests just fifty years ago are now deserts.  Mighty rivers like the Jamuna and Sabarmati that not so long ago carried huge quantities of water year round are now dry beds used for growing melons.  The air in our cities is so thick with pollution that it is not even fit to eat.

The better off among us can protect ourselves in the ivory towers of the modern world; air-conditioned houses, jet travel and sterilized water.  The others must remain t the mercy, not just of nature’s elements, but also of a rapidly deteriorating environment.

A growing economy is unquestionably the basis of a better future.  But a directionless growth brings with it costs that can quickly swamp out the benefits.  The great costs lie in the human misery that accompanies lopsided development of the kind our nation has chosen.  A better life for the few cannot be sustained for long if, as a result, life for the many is made worse.

Liberalization of the economy is seen by many in business as a boon, a license to make money and to run with the hounds.  But it will not be long before people realize that rights are meaningless unless they are accompanied by responsibilities.  Social justice is no less important than economic efficiency.

Our economy is taxiing down the runway and, no doubt, will soon take off.  But before we can hope to get up to cruising altitude, we can be sure that we will have to pay the dues.  Not only must we do so to prevent the environmental damage that would otherwise quickly limit the opportunities for continued growth, but also to create the widespread purchasing power without which any economy must quickly enter stagnation.

The trouble is that our economy does have a direction, the direction chosen by our political leaders.  But the direction is not the right one.  We find ourselves caught up in the jet stream- the inexorable currents of the global economy-and our aircraft of state I s careering ahead out of control.

In a country where the number of jobs that need to be created every year is counted in crores, the bulk of our nation’s financial capital is being invested in industries that can together create jobs only in lakhs.  Where investments need to be made in human development and basic infrastructure throughout the rural areas, money is being spent to create or import luxuries for the urban rich.

Flying ahead (as distinct from “forward”) at breakneck speed makes it difficult to keep in view the realities on the ground.

The impacts of such policies, which leave behind a trail of havoc among the poor, the environment and social institutions, cannot for long be ignored even by the most blind of captains, whether of government or of industry.  So, programmes and schemes are devised to take care of the damage left behind.  Such “schemes” quickly become just what the term implies - schemes to deceive the public into thinking that their welfare is the issue closet to the hearts of the policy makers.  The money reserved for such schemes is usually in the hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of crores and are launched with great fanfare suggesting that there is a real intention to achieve results.  Indeed, in principle the money is infinite, since most of the budget for any given scheme never gets spent, it can be successively recycled to create additional schemes that respond to the changing fashions and most recent political pronouncements of the time. First, hundreds of crores are earmarked for drinking water, then the same money is allocated for supplying improved looms to weavers, and then again, no doubt, will become available for rural housing. All under the rubric of poverty eradication.

Democratic decentralisation that gives decision, implementation and watchdog responsibility to the citizen in the village and the urban neighbourhood may well be the answer.  Empowering people through creation of a better understanding of what is rightfully their is the necessary first step to redirecting the economy and to making it more responsive  to their actual development needs.  But this trend will not make the existing vested interests comfortable.  Why else are the Gram sevaks and district level officials beginning to yell against  the transparency and accountability required under the new Panchayati Raj rules?  They can clearly see that their golden goose is about to be cooked.  We can expect to see such resistance bubble up to the higher levels of Government in the coming months and years.

Neither the trees of Bundelkhand nor the waters of the sacred rivers will return until the people of our country - all the people - have a brighter future to look forward to.

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