By Jaspal Singh,
According to a recent UN report,maximum number of poor people in the world live in India.So UN confirmed what ordinary people know by their experience that all the governments in last sixty seven years of India have failed them,whether in center or in different states. Poverty levels are not any better in Gujarat,about which a great deal of noise was being made in last few years and was being presented as a model of prosperity and good governance .
Najma Haptullah,one of the turncoat leaders of BJP ,who for years was leader of Congress party shamelessly reacted saying that we are not proud of what we have done.She reflects the attitude of the Indian ruling elite and their parties,that they have no sense of shame.They have no solution to the problem of poverty in India.They are part of the problem and not solution.
What future for these poor children?
Just a few days before the UN report,Rangarajan committee set up by the government also released its report and pointed out that poverty in the country was higher than reported earlier.Again Rangarajan committee figures are also concoction ,claiming that if one can spend 37 rupees in a village and 45 rupees in city per day than one is not poor.What a joke.Earlier Montek Singh had also perpetrated such a cruel joke.It all shows that they are living in some other India and not in the one in which masses of people live and try to make ends meet.
The report also pointed out that India also tops the list of under five deaths in the world.Ever since independence all the political parties have declared war on poverty,sometimes under the banner of socialism,sometimes under the banner of liberalization and privatization or Development.But the poverty keeps on increasing on one hand and the wealth of a handful keeps skyrocketing.While masses of people have hard time keeping their body and soul together,the wealth of billionaires is multiplying.This is happening when the state and government claim that they are committed to ending poverty.Just imagine what would happen if they had some other commitments.
People of India have to think,put their heads together and find solution to poverty themselves.The ruling elite and their political parties can not find solution,they are part of the problem.It has become quite clear now,by the experience of India as well as experience of other countries that neither the state nor the market can solve the problem of poverty.They both serve the interest of a handful and not the society at large.
So the people of India have to give rise to a new socio-economic system and new formations which serve their needs,which provide for their basic needs.They have to figure out how best to affirm and serve needs of all by interaction of human resources with natural resources in a wise and sustainable manner.The present direction of economy and “Development” can only bring misery,death and destruction to people and nature.It is not Vikas but Vinash.
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Jaspal Singh is a philosopher based in Cambridge, MA.