Developmental Terrorism

In recent years, India’s economy has been showing a high rate of growth. But in spite of a high growth rate, the country is lagging in terms of virtually all indices of social development. Some of the issues facing India are, the share of its poorest people has gone up from 25% in 1980 to 39% in 2010; farmers’ suicides have become a norm; marginalised communities are being dispossessed of their lands and common property resources by forcible land acquisitions for mining, industrialisation, big dams and SEZs.

The government is presenting a bleaker picture, by underplaying and diluting unpleasant facts and practicing ‘developmental terrorism’ on its own people. This is resulting in both non-violent and equally determined armed resistance by the victims.

The views and opinions of all major political parties on economic development have converged leaving only illusionary choice. The author points out that India’s case is unique as political democracy and sub-human poverty has existed here for a long time. Political democracy allows to, some extent, the deprivation and anger of the poor being voiced, through a system of voting. However, election candidates have their own vested interest, and the poor are left with very little choice, hence it is called ‘negative voting’. But still this makes poor people’s democracy limp along, albeit at a low equilibrium. However, with market forces coming up in a big way, the lot of the poor has worsened. The low-equilibrium balance is now upset in favour of high growth at the cost of deteriorating living conditions of the poor as well as ordinary people living in villages.

Ever since 1991, the state has rapidly moved away from mediating between the operations of the market principle (corporatisation, privatisation) and democratic principles, arguing that the state’s delivery system of basic services is inefficient, that can be replaced by a so called ‘efficient’ market system. It is to be understood that the most important reason for the failure of the state’s delivery system has been the centralization of state machinery (with the ideology of corporate led growth) and absence of local level democracy (empowering gram sabhas). In the context of providing financial autonomy at the local level for the purpose of local planning, the author suggests the use of nationalized banks to create a separate credit line and separate account for local government financing.

However, the defining issue at the moment is the control and use of natural resources. The growth of private mining in the mineral rich states of Orissa, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand has actually resulted in these states to be among the poorest 150 districts of the country.  The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of mining in these regions has not been made public. Further, the plundering of natural resources is being encouraged through deliberate export oriented central government policy of exporting raw ore, while generating low tax revenues.

By designing such policies, the Indian state is turning against its own poorest citizens and is internally colonizing them for the control of natural resources, which in turn is creating  so called ‘law and order’ problems that is threatening our democracy.

Reference:    Bhaduri, Amit. (2010). ‘Why an Alternative Model of Economic Development?’ In Mohanty, Manoranjan. (ed). The Land Question and the Marginalized, India – Social Development Report 2010. New Delhi: Oxford University Press