India is fast running up the ladders of economic growth. We are increasing our industrial output and creating our space in the global market. Last two decades have seen us growing well above the global average, pompously flaunting our tag of ‘fastest growing economy’. The celebration around this is so high and deafening that we hardly hear the outcry of people still incapacitated to fight the prevailing deficiency of ‘basics’ in their living.
They are falling prey to same disease outbreak, year after year. Indeed, building up infrastructure, auguring business-friendly environment, pushing manufacturing growth is an important cog in the wheel of success, but how- at the cost of human development, subverting our entire focus on materialistic development while ignoring the need of building the basic capacities of people? Should we call ourselves developed when year after year, children in one of our most populous state die due to the same cause?
Should we call ourselves developed when farmers commit suicide on a regular basis? Does our economic growth provide an answer to the young, aspirational lives lost at a coaching centre due to floating of construction and fire safety rules by coaching centres? Does our ‘7% growth’ hold water when basic health, educational, employment, living standards facilities do not reach those at the bottom of the ladder? These are some routine questions that a developmental economist would raise. They are indeed significantly counterfactual and reiterate the need for building the capacities of people so that each of us can have access to uninterrupted facilities of essentials.
However, the underlying concern is something deep here. The issue at stake is – WHO IS TO BLAME? Who is to blame for our dismal healthcare facilities when something as basic as oxygen cylinders and glucometer is missing from our hospitals? Who is to blame for staff shortages in hospitals and extraordinarily high teacher to student ratio in schools? Where does the faultline lie?
I would argue, the major onus of our dismal record in providing ‘essentials’ lies on us – the people and the society we are part of. Death of children in a hospital in Bihar due to the same disease outbreak year after year is clearly our failure. We are witnessing a humongous collective failure of our citizenry. But how?
Society is the essence of a nation. Society and its values, beliefs, habits, culture determine the path a nation follows. It affects everything, from media to civil society to its music and entertainment industry to its politics. Any nation’s progress is the progress of its society, and vice versa.
Which genre of movies does healthy business in India, says a lot about our society’s likes. Similarly, what goes on in politics is a function of what goes on in society. Politics is just a mere reflection of society and politicians are mere actors that facilitate to the prevailing taste of people.
There is no denial to the fact that our politics is touching new lows with every passing election. Our polity is completely losing its conscience and drifting towards vested interest-driven professionalism and is focussing on the narrow gains of the few. Politicians seldom talk about hard facts and more often invoke our identity, least constructively to spread enmity between the community.
Of course, identity has always been a weak nerve for us. Anything on our identity and we have a record of going berserk. That’s where the problem lies. We organise ourselves in groups to rally behind abstract ideas of identity and religion. No wonder we operate as a vote bank for political parties to exploit. We let go of the more basic issues at hand. Abstract notions of identity and nationalism do matter, no doubt, but healthcare, employment, road construction, safety, education are primary social needs.
These things hit you on a daily basis. You get sick, you go to the hospital and expect convenient and affordable treatment; we travel by road, often by public transport that is often overcrowded and rarely maintained; we take admission in higher educational institutes only to discover ill-maintained, poorly ventilated premises. Despite all this, we never prioritise these concerns when we go out to vote. Consequently, it assists political class so that they get an easy escape route, never holding themselves accountable to actually improve on these fronts.
When was the last time you heard someone get voted on the basis of their manifesto? Did you read the manifesto of major political parties before voting, and assessed which party is committing themselves to universal education and healthcare? When was the last time our society held the ruling government accountable for healthcare, educational and economic failures? Do you recall any time in independent India’s history when a government fell because they failed on these fronts?
Incumbent government accepting accountability seems so distant when not even the health minister resigns on moral grounds in medical unpreparedness and mishandling cases. Did anyone think of children who died due to oxygen shortage in a hospital in Gorakhpur before voting for U.P. Lok Sabha seats? Did political debates on prime time TV shows revolve around the issues of water shortage, lack of toilets and overburdening of staff in hospitals? Have you ever heard of your family political discussions along the lines of the dismal records of the government on basic amenities’ front? No, they more often than not talk about the foreign origins of a politician, or religious authenticity of a politician, or caste of the candidate in your constituency.
Clearly, this follows a simple logic. When the society does not vote on these issues, why would politicians talk about them? When society does not prioritise healthcare and education, why would political parties prioritise them? Political parties being self-interested groups that aspire to win public office, would only cater to what sways public more. When most of our media and society do not mobilise themselves and question the government on the death of children in Muzaffarpur, why would any CM or Health Minister accept their accountability? We let go of our politicians on the matters that concern us the most. We let a political party win an election on its nationalist pomp but rarely do we remember lives lost at the border and how much attention is paid to improve the conditions on ground to ensure no such thing happens in future. How many of us look at defense commitments of a political party in its election manifesto?
There is no denying the fact that it is establishment’s prerogative to preserve their servicemen; to allocate higher security so that explosives, militants do not enter India’s territory, so that no one can ram an explosive vehicle on a ‘National Highway’; to provide bulletproof jacket and vehicles for them to commute; to keep an eye on illegal settlements across the border; to make sure government hospitals have sufficient beds and medical professionals are well-equipped to counter an epidemic, to make sure affordable elementary education reaches everybody. But more importantly, it is our prerogative as a society to make sure when government fails to do so, we question them, hold them accountable and most basic of all, prioritise these concerns, remember this when exercising our democratic rights. There has to be a cross-cultural, cross-sectional consensus on making healthcare, education, safety, employment a major issue.
There is no clear way to say this. The reason our politicians talk more about abstract notions of regionalism, caste and class rather than developmental notions of healthcare, education and social safety is because we want them to; we are influenced by the former notions more. Clearly, politics merely reflects the society within which it operates.
It is time we put values to lives. It is time we get our priorities right. It is time we start talking about things that matter to us the most. After all, ‘change’ flows from society to the system.