UPA pushed 55Milion aam admi to bellow poverty - MJ Akbar

During UPA rule, 55 million pushed below poverty line
MJ Akbar

Instead of banning opinion polls during election time, the Government
should ban subversive academic organisations like Kolkata’s Indian
Statistical Institute. Opinion polls and exit polls are way off the
mark, so why bother? A ban only betrays the nervousness of a
Government anxious to come back to power, but uncertain about how this
will happen.

It is true that the slightest shift in the electoral demographic could
send a Government from the heaven of office to the hell of
irrelevance. But does the Cabinet of Mr Manmohan Singh and the party
of Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi actually believe that the
Indian voter sits biting his nails before a television set in order to
make up his mind about how he will vote?

The really accurate psephologist is not a pseudo-scientist available
on hire, but the social scientist whose name you do not know.

The facts that are moulding the mood of the voter have been gathered
by the Indian Statistical Institute, based on data collated by the
National Sample Survey Organisation from about 124,000 households
across the country. Get ready for a sharp crack in your first
illusion.

The UPA Government, through its economic spokesman Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, has sold us the bait that poverty has gone down under its
watch. Fact: The number of people living below the poverty line has
actually increased by a horrifying 20 per cent. India had some 270
million people below the poverty line in 2004-5, when the present
Government took office. That number has gone up by 55 million, or 20
per cent, after five years of policies named after the ‘aam
admi’ (common man) but shaped for the ‘khaas admi’ (vested interests)..

The economic map of India has shifted the axis of tension. The old
notional north-south line that divided the country into broad politico-
cultural halves is passé. There is a new poverty diagonal that
separates the nation on a north-west to south-east arc. The India to
the east is sinking towards Bangladesh and Burma; India to the west is
rising, and becoming the stuff of popular aspiration and fantasy.

If you want to know why Ms Mamata Banerjee could undermine the
ramparts of the red fortress in Bengal, pore over the Indian
Statistical Institute report. A stunning 14 out of West Bengal’s 18
districts are among the 100 poorest in India, after three decades of
Marxist rule. The most indigent district in the country is not in
Bihar, Orissa or Jharkhand, but in West Bengal — Murshidabad, capital
of a principality that once included the whole of Bengal, Orissa and a
significant part of Bihar.

When Robert Clive stepped into Murshidabad in 1757 after victory in
the Battle of Plassey, he looked around in wonder and exclaimed that
it was richer than London. Today he would look around and find women
slaving away, making beedis at the rate of Rs 41 for a thousand, out
of which the middleman keeps six rupees. In percentage terms, the rich
pay far less to their middlemen.

Muslim-majority Murshidabad has a population density of 1,102 per
square km against a national average of 590. Among its constituencies
is Jangipur. Its Member of Parliament is the present Finance Minister
of India, Mr Pranab Mukherjee. Wouldn't it be ironic if the Marxists
were pushed back in West Bengal but won Jangipur, as the law of
accountability began to extract its price?

The job losses that could cross over a hundred million by March are
going to have significant impact on voter mood. January saw a fall of
24 per cent in exports from last year. Realists consider the Reserve
Bank of India’s projection of seven per cent growth optimistic.

Rising India might be under a cloud for the last six months, but
Stagnant India has been in gloom for years. There is little coverage
of this gloom since media is driven by advertising; advertising is
interested in consumption, and the hungry do not even consume food.

It is extraordinary how political parties shy away from decisive
facts, and chase ephemeral ones. The extended BJP family is sending
vigilantes to check on what the young are doing in their leisure time,
but displays little interest in what the young really want — someone
to worry about their workplace. It is understandable when a ruling
party shies away from the economy because it has no answers. Why
should an Opposition party be averse? All it has to do is ask
questions.

The political discourse, on all sides, is consumed not by issues that
are relevant to the voter, but by posturing and negotiations for
partnerships of convenience. The parties do not even pretend to have
any ideology in common, or even a purpose that is vaguely similar.

Everyone knows that the negotiations for office after the results will
have little to do with the manifestos that will be printed before the
general election. There is only one weight that will be placed on the
scales of judgement, the weight of numbers. The scales of justice have
no place in politics. One is often reminded, while watching the
pantomime, that when you dance with a bear you don’t stop. Those who
stop get mauled before they can walk off.

A friend reminded me of an even more appropriate aphorism, and was
kind enough to add that this had become relevant to the whole of South
Asia. The quotation was from the Bible of South Asian democracy, Alice
in Wonderland. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will
take you there.
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