Author: MJ Akbar
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: February 22, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/157990/During-UPA-rule-55-million-pushed-below-poverty-line.html
Instead of banning opinion polls during election
time, the Government should ban subversive academic organisations like Kolkata's
Indian Statistical Institute. Opinion polls and exit polls are way off the
mark, so why bother? A ban only betrays the nervousness of a Government anxious
to come back to power, but uncertain about how this will happen.
It is true that the slightest shift in the
electoral demographic could send a Government from the heaven of office to
the hell of irrelevance. But does the Cabinet of Mr Manmohan Singh and the
party of Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi actually believe that the Indian
voter sits biting his nails before a television set in order to make up his
mind about how he will vote?
The really accurate psephologist is not a
pseudo-scientist available on hire, but the social scientist whose name you
do not know.
The facts that are moulding the mood of the
voter have been gathered by the Indian Statistical Institute, based on data
collated by the National Sample Survey Organisation from about 124,000 households
across the country. Get ready for a sharp crack in your first illusion.
The UPA Government, through its economic spokesman
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, has sold us the bait that poverty has gone down under
its watch. Fact: The number of people living below the poverty line has actually
increased by a horrifying 20 per cent. India had some 270 million people below
the poverty line in 2004-5, when the present Government took office. That
number has gone up by 55 million, or 20 per cent, after five years of policies
named after the 'aam admi' (common man) but shaped for the 'khaas admi' (vested
interests).
The economic map of India has shifted the
axis of tension. The old notional north-south line that divided the country
into broad politico-cultural halves is passé. There is a new poverty
diagonal that separates the nation on a north-west to south-east arc. The
India to the east is sinking towards Bangladesh and Burma; India to the west
is rising, and becoming the stuff of popular aspiration and fantasy.
If you want to know why Ms Mamata Banerjee
could undermine the ramparts of the red fortress in Bengal, pore over the
Indian Statistical Institute report. A stunning 14 out of West Bengal's 18
districts are among the 100 poorest in India, after three decades of Marxist
rule. The most indigent district in the country is not in Bihar, Orissa or
Jharkhand, but in West Bengal - Murshidabad, capital of a principality that
once included the whole of Bengal, Orissa and a significant part of Bihar.
When Robert Clive stepped into Murshidabad
in 1757 after victory in the Battle of Plassey, he looked around in wonder
and exclaimed that it was richer than London. Today he would look around and
find women slaving away, making beedis at the rate of Rs 41 for a thousand,
out of which the middleman keeps six rupees. In percentage terms, the rich
pay far less to their middlemen.
Muslim-majority Murshidabad has a population
density of 1,102 per square km against a national average of 590. Among its
constituencies is Jangipur. Its Member of Parliament is the present Finance
Minister of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee. Wouldn't it be ironic if the Marxists
were pushed back in West Bengal but won Jangipur, as the law of accountability
began to extract its price?
The job losses that could cross over a hundred
million by March are going to have significant impact on voter mood. January
saw a fall of 24 per cent in exports from last year. Realists consider the
Reserve Bank of India's projection of seven per cent growth optimistic.
Rising India might be under a cloud for the
last six months, but Stagnant India has been in gloom for years. There is
little coverage of this gloom since media is driven by advertising; advertising
is interested in consumption, and the hungry do not even consume food.
It is extraordinary how political parties
shy away from decisive facts, and chase ephemeral ones. The extended BJP family
is sending vigilantes to check on what the young are doing in their leisure
time, but displays little interest in what the young really want - someone
to worry about their workplace. It is understandable when a ruling party shies
away from the economy because it has no answers. Why should an Opposition
party be averse? All it has to do is ask questions.
The political discourse, on all sides, is
consumed not by issues that are relevant to the voter, but by posturing and
negotiations for partnerships of convenience. The parties do not even pretend
to have any ideology in common, or even a purpose that is vaguely similar.
Everyone knows that the negotiations for office
after the results will have little to do with the manifestos that will be
printed before the general election. There is only one weight that will be
placed on the scales of judgement, the weight of numbers. The scales of justice
have no place in politics. One is often reminded, while watching the pantomime,
that when you dance with a bear you don't stop. Those who stop get mauled
before they can walk off.
A friend reminded me of an even more appropriate
aphorism, and was kind enough to add that this had become relevant to the
whole of South Asia. The quotation was from the Bible of South Asian democracy,
Alice in Wonderland. If you don't know where you are going, any road will
take you there.
-- MJ Akbar is chairman of the fortnightly
news magazine Covert.
