“Rich-poor gap is widening’“Urban elite easily disconnect themselves from problems of poor’Special Correspondent The Hindu
Date:14/03/2008 CHENNAI: India´s economic policies have led to a “burning crisis’ in rural India and a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and civil society is failing to come up with an effective response to the problem, P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu and 2007 Ramon Magsaysay award winner said here on Wednesday. Mr. Sainath, delivering the golden jubilee lecture at the department of history at Loyola College, warned of the tendency of the intelligentsia and the urban elite to “easily disconnect themselves’ from the problems plaguing India´s rural poor and urged students to be more aware of the implications of the choices they were making. “There are two Indias in front of us,’ he said. “We have to ask ourselves the question of where we stand. It´s very easy to disconnect yourself, but it´s a choice you make… Every time you step out to buy something, you are making a choice. That choice can be for or against farmers. When you decide to buy freshly frozen produce form a big supermarket, you are cutting into the income of the woman who brings vegetables to your home.’ Citing the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector report, Mr. Sainath said there while there were 836 million people who lived on less than Rs. 20 a day, India was fourth in the world when it came to the number of billionaires. “There are some very fundamental questions we have to answer,’ he said. “Where do I stand vis-À-vis the rise of corporate power? Do I believe in citizenship or in the concentration of power in private hands?’ Mr. Sainath said civil society´s response to the problem of inequality was “too disaggregated.’ “The more we make universities and colleges an enclave rather than a part of society, the more we will perpetuate being fragmented, atomised and unable to respond,’ he said. He said the State´s economic policies had led to a situation of gross inequality “where we have the fastest growing number of billionaires as well as the greatest level of destitution at the bottom of the spectrum.’ The withdrawal of the State from sectors that mattered to the poor such as education and health, the unprecedented rise of corporate power and the transfer of resources from the poor to the rich had exacerbated the problem. “If you look at agriculture in India, these processes have worked very, very viciously,’ he said. “We deregulated agriculture from mid-1990s in a way that allowed every racketeer to profit… What we have now is the collapse of Indian agriculture, millions of people leaving their homes in search of jobs that are not there… and 1,66,000 farmers who have committed suicide in the last ten years.’ © Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu |