The Indian “economic” system

India is believed to be one of the major growing economies today, and one with a very positive outlook. A country with “Mission 2020”, dreams soaring really high, and huge expectations of turning to a superpower. A small introspection:

What we (middle/ rich class) talk about:

Most of the topics that interest us are concentrated in the entertainment domain. Movies and Cricket contribute for a huge chunk of the small talks, and majority of the debates. The next spot is occupied by fashion, a hot topic particularly among the ladies, and nowadays among men too.

Now, when the fuel prices are up, we start talking about inflation. We draw up comparisons with the previous few years’ prices, and also with the neighboring countries’ prices. Depending on the different levels of income, the different topics discussed in this context will be vegetables, fuel and gold.

Once, or twice in a year, we turn extremely patriotic, and that is when we talk about corruption. The hot topics here will be Anna Hazare and Commonwealth games, closely followed by Baba Ramdev, 2G scam and numerous other scams which the Indian government is very generous to provide us with.

What the media reports:

Most of the daily headlines has something to do with politicians (rather than politics), and is usually about him criticizing his old party/ally or the opposition party.

Whenever there is a hunger strike, the headlines report about corruption, Jan Lokpal, the activists behind it, the celebrity supporters for it, and so on. It is important to note that, even if media plays a good role reporting the scams and corruption, only the major (huge amount) ones get considerable attention.

The rest of the topics that attracts media attention are sports, bollywood and economics. In sports, the main news will be about Cricket, once in a while a comparison of the Olympics team’s achievement with the “huge population” perspective to it. In Bollywood, it is usually the male and female cat fights, and in economics, falling rupee and inflation takes the top spot.

What the government talks about:

During the “corruption season”, the government ensures that all steps will be taken to combat it, and even if Lokpal bill may not be passed, it promises that there will be no more scams, and the system will be cleaned slowly.

During every fuel price rise, inflation will be deeply considered by the finance ministry, and due importance will be given to prevent the downslide of rupee.

The government congratulates the achievements of the Indian cricket team, the Olympics and Commonwealth contingent, appoints different celebrities in the government.   

P.S: The above points are with respect to a usual day. Now, when something unusual happens, like a terrorist/ regional/religious attacks, focus of the 3 groups shift to it. Government talks about Pakistan hands in it, media talks about the failure of Indian intelligence, and we talk about anything and everything related to it for 1-2 days.

The vicious circle

Government speaks about corruption, inflation, sometimes about entertainment. Media reports it, and we also talk about it. We discuss the problems, media reports it, and government solves or promises to solve it. The circle continues, and superficially, everything seems fine (assuming government solves the problems). 

Just that we are missing a “small” point here. All the above points, be it sports, movies, inflation, corruption (big scams), Jan Lokpal, it effectively applies to just around 20 percent of the total Indian population. The “we” formed by the middle and the rich class does not even form one quarter of Indian population.

What actually bothers the majority of Indians:

India is one of the highest producer and exporter of wheat and rice in the world. Agriculture is still the main contributor of Indian economy. Still,

1. 47% of Indian children are malnourished. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of Sub-Saharan Africa.
2. India is home to about 25% of the world's hungry poor.
3. More than half of all pregnant women aged between 15 and 49 years suffer from anemia. 
4. On an average, 50 farmers commit suicide daily.

All this, despite India being a place where we have a Public Distribution System (PDS), started with an aim of maintaining food security, so that rice and wheat is available to the poorest of the poor at very low cost.

Where does it go wrong? The simplest answer that comes to my mind is corruption. Not the big scams, not the multi crore network /sports/coal scams, but the small ones in the PDS. Certain minor aspects like deserving people not getting the BPL card, and the undeserving possessing it. PDS being actively involved in black market and selling the food products at a higher price to other shops, PDS adulterating the remaining food items and selling it to the poor, food products reaching PDS very late due to inefficiency in the system, and huge stocks getting rotten year after year, poor people not being aware of the existence of such PDS systems. 

Neither the media, nor us, or the government, play a role in educating the poor about the system. No media reports about the small scams, no one talks about it. No debates are held by the middle class about hunger, no one wants to think about it. Even if everyone is aware of it, we just shut our mind away from it, all because we do not want to go out of our comfort zone. We do not want to think about it and get disturbed, media do not get any considerable profit from it, and the government is rarely bothered by it.

How much ever we progress economically, whatever is our GDP, if the majority of the people are hungry, and are deprived of the basic human necessities, then what use is it? I wonder if there will be a time when the national indicators are hunger, poverty and malnutrition, rather than GDP and per capita income. I wonder if there will be a time when the economic situation of a country is determined by the number of un-fed stomachs, rather than by the value of currency. A time when media concentrates on the real news troubling the majority of the population, rather than touching superficial matters. Above all, I wonder, if there will be people amongst us, willing to get rid of the comfort zone we are in, sacrifice our riches, and fight and strive for the basic rights of the poor. In my humble opinion, India can start its race to be a super power then.