Dissident Voice / October 19th, 2013
Developing divisions
Participation is a cornerstone of the democratic
ideal. It sits alongside those other marginalized tenets: social
justice, freedom, and equality. Forgotten principles in a world of
corporate politics driven by the quest for endless economic growth and
maximum market share. Hailed as the world’s largest democracy and touted
as ‘an emerging economic powerhouse’, India’s economy is beginning to
cough and splutter with the rupee trading at an all time low, and the
‘current account’ showing an $88 billion deficit.
A decade of 9% growth has created 55 US$
billionaires, a new and burgeoning middle class and a vast underclass of
people living in extreme poverty. The middle class has doubled since 2001, growing from 6% to 13% (amounting to around 153 million). Yet
inequality stalks the land: in the cities with their sprawling,
overcrowded slums alongside the new high-rise designer boutiques and
between desperately poor rural communities and urban dwellers. There is
inequality within inequality, as government definitions of what
constitutes poverty are re-imagined to exclude great swaths of people in
need.
India’s economic growth, (neatly tied together with
government corruption and neglect) has been fuelled by a toxic cocktail
of elements that includes: twenty years of market liberalisation, land
grabbing and mineral extraction, the privatization of water supplies and
extensive dam building. Millions of mainly Adivasi (indigenous), who
make up 9% of the population and Dalits (so-called untouchables) have
been displaced by a range of enormous infrastructure projects, most
notably the corporate takeover of the countryside, which has seen
subsidies to small holder farmers scrapped, access to credit made all
but impossible, the Indian market opened up to foreign multi-nationals,
and a plethora of state incentives provided to Indian corporations. The
selection box of socially unjust, government policies have been promoted
“in the name of the poor, but [are] really meant to service the rising demands of the new aristocracy”, Arundhati Roy states in Democracy’s Failing Light (DFL).
They are driving a rupee rich wedge between the elite, the aspiring
elite, and the millions in poverty, causing divisions to deepen,
resentments to grow, and tensions to strengthen. The most acute sign of
the community carnage being inflicted on the poor is (perhaps) the
plague of farmer suicides. Drowning in debt and despair, farmers are
committing suicide at the unimaginable rate of one every 30 minutes,
with around 250,000 taking their own lives between 1995 and 2009 alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment