By Krishna Jha
India suffers from the greatest tragedy of the century. It is the crisis of fragmentation. The Constitution that has always stood for multiplicity, faces the threat of autocracy. There is the majority with its divisive slogans calling for end of an age when all people lived in unity. The entire initiative is aimed at suffocating the voice of people even before it is communicated. The cry for hunger, livelihood, and finally life itself goes unattended. People have been reduced to caste, community and gender. Each one plays its divisive role, which promotes antagonism and feeds into our multiplicity. The areas are divided, localities are divided, every house lives in pain as people do not live as one. Each one has to live according to the space allotted to one. To honour human dignity has become an alien concept.
November 26, 1949 was the day when our Constitution was adopted. But the integration of our huge nation, and unification of cultural diversities was completed only by January 26, 1950. That stands for the people, by the people and also of the people, which signifies that the power is vested in the hands of entire people of the country. The Day itself has been known as the Republic Day. It is on this day the Indian people, irrespective of their multiplicity are empowered to select their own government.
But independence for what? Let us begin with our economy, the life line for our people.
Our economy is wrapped in a mist of lies. One of them is the boast that India is the fastest growing economy in the world. Under this mist the reality is that when GDP falls steeply, each step in the climb becomes as close to the summit as far down it had gone. Further the decline, brighter is the reach up.
The NSO’s First Advance Estimates (FAE) of National Income, 2021-22, were released on January 7. The bullet point in the government release was the number 9.2 per cent. The NSO had stressed that the estimated GDP growth at constant prices of 2021-22 (9.2 per cent) was against the contraction in 2020-21 (-7.3 per cent). The government had all the intentions to remove the fall in 2020-21 and instead record a growth of approximately 1.9 per cent over 2019-20, despite the reality being just reverse. The initiative was not without motive. It is the election time. States that are involved are Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh and in faraway regions of Goa and Manipur. The sweet touch of lure has turned sore.
It is just tip of an iceberg. Devastation is common. Public sectors are bought by corporate houses that have no interest in running them. All they want is to earn cash, without paying anything. Corporate houses are not interested in either production or investment. Industrial expansion is not their domain while public welfare remains a distant dream. The railways, airports, production houses are all victims of their cash starved management. The economy has been stuttering as industrial production, according to official data, has gone down to the bottom at 1.4 percent. Inflation keeps growing. Retail prices follow the same. While in November, it was 4.9 percent, in December it went up to 5.6 percent. In the urban areas, the prices have kept rising and reached up to 5.8 percent, in rural areas, the masses kept suffering at inflation level of 5.36 percent. In the proximity of polls, the measures are not so stern and one example is that of fuel which remains static for now.
The source of livelihood also has become scarce. Employment opportunities are getting scant and downward process is continuing. According to the CMIE, the urban unemployment rate is 8.51 per cent and the rural unemployment rate is 6.74 per cent. The reality is even darker. Jobs are temporary, salaries are poorly, work hours are much beyond the earlier legally permitted hours. Labour laws have been shaped to meet the needs of the vested interest. Women and children are the worst victims of the crisis. It is this section that is increasingly becoming targets of all kinds of exploitation. Children are facing stunted growth as basic food ingredients of an Indian household, the rice and pulses, milk and edible oil are beyond common man’s reach.
Then there is lack of teaching facilities. Children in rural India and poor neighbourhoods of urban India have been totally denied the education programmes. They have been growing illiterate as there have been no lessons since last two years. Women have much less job openings and they usually get short term jobs with much less wages compared to their menfolk.
Along with economy, we need freedom also. Constitution has awarded us freedom of expression, choice of livelihood. Our democratic values ensure our freedom to demand jobs, education, health services, and availability of essentials to survive. It also allows us to preserve and observe our cultural stream. But even the breathing space has been taken away. There is the communal hatred, blazing relentlessly to divide the society and get rid of the other smaller half.
It is not the India that our national anthem speaks about. (IPA Service)