To hell with your poverty line

The fact that a rural Indian spending Rs. 22.50 a day would not be considered poor by a Planning Commission whose Deputy Chairman's foreign trips between May and October last year cost a daily average of Rs. 2.02 lakh (“The austerity of the affluent”- P. Sainath The Hindu dated 21^st May 2012) exposes the hypocrisy of the Indian state glorifying its economic growth rate even as India has about 26 million people living below poverty line and 35 per cent out of this group, classified as the poorest of the poor, have income level of less than Rs.22/- per day out of the total population. The politicians, government, bureaucrats, media, NGOs, civil society — collectively as a nation, under the hypnotising influence of global market forces and obsession with the projected economic growth rate have turned their faces away from the millions of poor people who famish with a meagre Rs.20/- per day income. As per 2001 Census, about 78 million people in the country were living without a home and more than that number were holed up in urban slums. The number of the poor living in the country is more than the poor living in any other country of the world.

Despite the socio-economic problems plaguing the Indian society, post-reforms period has been marked by high growth rate, placing the country among the fastest growing economies in the world. Unfortunately, the spurt in economic activity in the country and increase in the growth rate over the past few lustrums has not been able to make a discernible impact on the problem of poverty, deprivation and exploitation of the poor. The divide between the rich and the poor has become a tangible reality. Though there are more Indian billionaires in the Forbes list than ever before, the number of the poor and hungry is ever increasing. During this era of rapid growth, the problems of unequal and skewed distribution of economic resources and the fruits of growth have surfaced. The income gap between rich and poor has increased steadily in line with economic progress, but only recently, with unemployment and austerity measures hitting the poor has public resentment against inequality. One is left speechless and shocked when one finds a Montek Singh Ahluwalia or an FM or a PM waxing eloquent over GDP growth, liberalised economy, globalization and fixing Rs. 28/- as poverty line. The planning commission has not only fudged the poverty data to exaggerate the fall in poverty but also supplied misleading statistics.

The ever-widening rich-poor divide and income inequality tends to threaten the stability of India. In the present scenario, the role of the media, NGOs and civil society is important to expose and highlight the moral, social and administrative deficiencies in the political system. As Indian Constitution, through the Directive Principles of State Policy entrusts the responsibility of equitable distribution of economic resources to the government policies,  the government must strive hard to achieve the ultimate goal of equitable growth of the economy. Liberal economy cannot snatch away the basic right of decent living from the poor and the downtrodden. It is the responsibility of the government to take measures for bridging the widening gap, which requires pragmatic policies aimed at redistributive justice on a sustainable basis.