India’s
Deepening Poverty Crisis By Sajjad Shaukat (JR 158 SS 39)
Poverty which
creates other related crises is said to be a curse. Poverty is one of the major
problems of the Third World. Poverty reflects a condition in which an
individual fails to maintain a living standard sufficient for his physical and
mental existence. Famous economist, Adam Smith remarks, “Man is rich or poor
according to the degree in which he can afford to enjoy the necessities, the
conveniences and the amusements of human life.”
On the one hand,
India has rapidly been making progress in modern technologies-especially arms
and ammunition with the help of the Western countries, while on the other, it
has world’s largest number of poor people.
According to a
report, “Of its more than 1 billion inhabitants, nearly 260.3 million are below
the poverty line, of which 193.2 million are in the rural areas and 67.1
million are in urban areas. More than 75% of poor people reside in villages.
Poverty level is not uniform across India. It is below 10% in states like
Delhi, Goa, and Punjab etc. whereas it is below 50% in Bihar 43% and in Orissa
47%. It is between 30-40% in Northeastern states of Assam, Tripura, and
Mehgalaya and in Southern states of Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.”
In this regard, by
exposing the statistics highlighting poverty, unemployment farmer’s suicides
and health, under the caption “Incredible and Shining India a Myth”, published
on the Kashmir Media Watch and the KMW News on March 29, 2019 Dr. Arif Javid
Wrote: “Imagine a country where extremist
parties (BJP and Sangh Parviar) got vacated 72 villages (having a population
over One lac people) to build a statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at Kevadiya
in Gujarat with a staggering cost of INR 2,979 crores under title of “ Statue
of Unity”. Reportedly, apart from dislocating such a huge population, the
Gujarat government is concerned about the fate of tourists at its newest
tourist attraction as 500 mugger crocodiles are also to be relocated. In a
related development, recently, Maharashtra Cabinet approved the
allocation of Rs 100 crore for construction of a memorial in Mumbai dedicated
to Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray.”
Dr. Arif
elaborated: “India has estimated population of about 1.2 billion people. As per
SOS statistics, More than 800 million
people in India are considered poor. 68.8% of the Indian population
lives on less than $2 a day. Over 30% even have less than $1.25 per day
available. India is one of the world’s top countries with regard to
malnutrition. More than 200 million people don’t have sufficient access to
food, including 61 million children. 7.8 million infants were found to
have a birth weight of less than 2.5 kilograms-alarming figures for a country
commonly referred to as the emerging market.”
Although child
labour for children under the age of 14 in India is prohibited by law,
according to official figures, 12.5 million children between the ages of 5 and
14 are working. Aid agencies assume that in reality, there are many more
estimating that 65 million children between 6 and 14 years do not go to school.
2.7 million Indians are infected with the HIV virus; about 220,000 of them
are children, with the tendency rising. India added 18 new billionaires to the
list just last year, taking the total number of billionaires in the country to
119. Their total wealth is higher than the Union budget of India for 2018-2019
(Rs 24,422 billion), the report says. The country’s combined revenue and
capital expenditure of the Centre and states for public health, sanitation and
water supply is less than the wealth of India’s richest billionaire Mukesh
Ambani. Inequality in India is based not just on class but caste, sexuality and
gender as well. “A Dalit woman can expect to live almost 14.6 years less than
one from a high-caste,” the report says, asserting that this inequality costs
India its human potential. Latest employment data reinforces the distress about
the job situation in India. The Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy
reported a loss of 1.1 crore jobs in 2018 and estimated that the
unemployment rate reached a 15-month high of 7.4% in December
2018.The Labour Bureau also recorded a continuous rise in
unemployment from 3.4% in 2014 to 3.7% in 2015 and 3.9% in 2016-17. Debt and
draught continue to overwhelm farmers all around India. As per recent figures,
Four hundred thirty farmers and farm labourers committed suicide during last
year in agriculture rich Punjab alone. As per Guardian report, nearly 60,000 Indian farmers and farm workers
committed suicide over the past three decades. In 2015, about 12,602 farmers
committed suicide across India. As per World Health Org statistics,
around 2 lakh leprosy cases continue to be reported every year in the world,
with India accounting for more than half of them.”
Dr. Arif Javid
maintained: “Above statistics (covering few sectors is tip of iceberg),
however, amply busts the myth of “Incredible and Shining India” as it’s the “mask of media propaganda” that
projects India in a hyper exaggerated manner.”
It is notable
that one can note great socio-economic disparities between urban and rural
regions of India. People of rural areas are forced to move out of villages to
seek some subsistence living in the cities. In this process, they even lose
some little saving what they had in their native villages. In the cities, they
have to live without food and other basic amenities of life. Thus they are
compelled to adopt the profession of begging in the urban areas.
It is misfortune
of India that a select few families have good standards of living, one can
compare them to the richest in the world, but the majority cannot get two meals
a day.
However, dimensions
of rural and urban poverty in India are manifold such as lack of facilities or
poor arrangement in the fields of heath, education, sanitation, nutrition etc.
including low income. The overdependence on monsoon with non-availability of
irrigational facilities often culminate in crop-failure and low agricultural
productivity, forcing farmers in the vicious circle of debt-traps.
According to an
Indian study, “our economic development since Independence has been lopsided.
There has been increase in unemployment, creating poverty. Population is
growing at an alarming rate. The size of the Indian family is relatively bigger
averaging at 4.2.The other causes include dominance of caste system which
forces the individual to stick to the traditional and hereditary occupations.”
And Public
health system in India suffers from many problems which include insufficient
funding and shortage of facilities. In one of its reports, Indian Planning
Commission has admitted that the “country has a shortfall of six lakh doctors,
10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons. This has led to a dismal
patient-doctor ratio in the country. For every 10,000 Indians, there is just
one doctor.” In this respect, in the past, the much publicized National Urban
Health Mission aimed at providing accessible, affordable and effective basic
health care facilities especially to the urban poor badly failed in its
objectives.
Nevertheless,
acute poverty has added to psychological problems, noted among these Indians
like emotional disturbances and depression. Particularly, emotional abuse is
due to the neglect and maltreatment of children and women. It involves a
disregard of the physical, emotional, moral and social requirements of the
children and women.
Owing to
poverty, there are other social abuses of children like kidnapping and forcing
them to beg in streets including murder. According to National Crime Records Bureau, “crimes against
children have increased by 3.8% nationally-14,975 cases in 2005 from 14,423 in
2004.” And latest estimate shows 20% percent increase in these crimes.
As regards women
and the young ladies, in a gender-biased society of India, apart from other
poverty-related sufferings, working women have to face a number of problems
such as injustice of unequal salaries and wages for the same job—adductions and
rapes. Recently, there have been several cases of sexual harassment involving
even the senior women officials, working in civil and military establishments. The
psychological pressure of all this easily leads to a woman to quit her job,
making her vulnerable to crime or suicide. In some cases, this deteriorating
situation has compelled Indian women to take relief through alcohol and smoking. In this context,
the third edition of the Tobacco Atlas released in Dublin by the American
Cancer Society and World Lung Foundation points out: “More women in India are
turning smokers and oral users of tobacco. India has the third highest number
of female tobacco users in the world.”
So far as crimes
are concerned, even foreigners are not spared. Theft, robbery and rape which
have become routine matter in India have also been conducted against the Western
nationals form time to time.
Nonetheless,
there are several laws in India to control various anti-social activities and
crimes which emanate from poverty, but the same have failed owing to their
non-implementation. Meanwhile, from
time to time a number of plans and schemes have been launched by the Indian
subsequent governments to improve the poor standard of living by ensuring food
security, promoting self-employment, increasing wage employment and improving
access to basic social services including raising the status of women, but all
these proved unsuccessful due to ineffective implementation coupled with high
corruption among the officials which also includes country’s top officials. Notably, in 2017, Indian government of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi announced economic reforms, claiming that the country’s economy
was in a strong position. But, this plan badly failed.
Undoubtedly,
we can conclude that
directly or indirectly, India’s deepening
poverty crisis has resulted into violence of various forms—social
strife, economic crisis and political instability.
Sajjad Shaukat
writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic
Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International
Relations
