Disillusioned with the state of affairs
By Reeta Sharma

I HAVE often been teased for being a ‘hopeless optimist’. But alas! I am one no more. My optimism appears to be fast dwindling with each passing day as I see my country getting shackled in the chains of slavery once again. This time,however, not by any phirangis but by harmful and evil forces within the country.

One is disillusioned with life. Can one hope that one day there will be no hungry children? Can one hope that one day all Indians will be literate? The questions are endless. When one glances at various aspects of life — be it slums, overcrowded railway stations, hospitals or the complete absence of them, roads and accidents, delayed justice, violation of traffic rules, crimes against women, gang wars, caste wars, misuse of religion for political ambitions, exploitation of the poor, child abuse, unhygienic surroundings, population explosion, AIDS etc staring in our face, one wonders whether everything will fall in place one day.

I personally had great faith in the hope held out in a poem written by Sahir Ludhianvi "Voh subah kabhi to aiygee". Can one hope that one day our country will be able to give us a peaceful life wherein everyone will be contributing towards a beautiful future? Yes, one could have dreamt of that subah if our system had not got corrupted. This could have been a reality if all of us had been working together to built a ‘new India’. But all Indians, including politicians, government officials, teachers, doctors, the educated and the uneducated have let the country down. Are all of us doing what we are expected to do? It is said hope sustains life. But where is the hope?

Before you begin to think that I have turned cynical, please consider the reality today. We are sold rosy-pictures wrapped in false information or exaggerated figures.

Does one have any sound reason to have faith in one’s leadership, be it at the national, state, panchayat or the municipal level? Most of our leaders have been associated with scams, corrupt practices, nepotism, blatant display of self-promotion and scant regard for the law. Fiftytwo years of democracy have trained them to interpret and manipulate law, democratic institutions, the system of governance in a way which is eroding people’s faith in everything around them. Politicians have failed to perform as watchdogs of democracy, and the system is heading towards chaos.

A nation’s progress is gauged by its capability to provide food, clothing, housing, education, agricultural development, employment and industrial growth to its citizens. Can one say that the country has succeeded in providing all this to every Indian? Can one hold anyone accountable in this regard?

Surely, one is aware that the country’s main debilitative feature is "poverty". If one is too excited about the new models of cars entering the market or the five-star hotels and posh houses coming up, one needs to pause and think. Out of the 98 crore Indians, how many can afford all this? All the so-called affluence of this country resides with only 10 per cent of population. What is the plight of the rest of the 90 per cent?

How is the "poverty line" of our country established? Well, it depends upon the methodology adopted by the Planning Commission. One of its ‘expert groups’, set up in 1994, which included leading economists, recommended that the old methodology of estimating poverty should be changed. As per the new method, 39 per cent of the population was found to be below the poverty line. Ironically, this number was apparently achieved by recycling old records for, within eight months, the Government of India presented a different percentage (39.9 per cent) at the World Summit for Social Development at Copenhagen. Was our government stating that every eight months, the number of people below the poverty line increased by .9 per cent?

Even though this percentage intriguingly keeps fluctuating, a look at the reality is essential for all of us. Fortyone per cent of our countrymen are landless agricultural labourers. This huge population survives only by tilling the land of other people. Moreover, it is vulnerable to exploitation. It is this section which presents a pathetic picture — of deplorable living conditions, high infant mortality rate, illiteracy, bonded labour etc. With this dismal scenario in view, how can we pat ourselves for the 1 per cent running fast cars, fancy new stores, selling imported stuff or another 6 per cent slotted in the middle class?

Fortyfive per cent of our population comprises the marginal and small farmers. In today’s demanding surroundings with consumerist trends, this class remains crushed. The so-called education that their children are getting is merely making them ‘semi-literate’. Again, not all children are going to schools. There are numerous dropouts on account of children being used as helping hands at the fields, neglect of the girl child and lack of awareness among the parents.

Another 7.5 per cent of our population consists of artisans, mostly living in rural India. They endlessly toil to survive, facing exploitation and unhygienic living conditions. What future have we carved for them? Have paved a way for everything to fall in order in due course of time? No! The welfare state has failed to see to the welfare of a large section of our society.

Have the elite, the government, the observers, the leaders ever paused to think what the poorest of the poor, the landless labourers do when there is no agriculture-related activity for nearly 240 days of the year? What ‘hope’ do we have for them? Are our leaders thinking of them?

Yes, they are. At least, that is what they say. After all, they are always talking about them before and after elections. It is in their name that plans are made and policies framed. But where are all those crores spent on them during the past 52 years? Why don’t we get to see any improvement? Why do we only witness degeneration at each step of our life?

Are we educating our nation’s future generations? Yes, we are. We are educating them in schools, which differ from one another in every respect. We are widening the gulf between the rural and the urban population. There is no uniformity in education between the urban and the rural schooling. We have teachers who hate working in village schools and thus suffer from no sense of guilt while absenting themselves from teaching or lobbying for a transfer. Our so-called educated remain unemployed. So, where is the hope?

This feature was published on September 18, 1999