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New Delhi, 16
September 2020
Wooing Middle Class
MAJORITY POOR SHORT
CHANGED
By Dhurjati Mukherjee
The middle class in India plays a vital role
in society. As a result, political parties are deeply concerned about its welfare
and try to fulfil its needs and aspirations. Successive policies followed by
the government over the past decade or even in earlier years have benefitted
the middle class greatly.
There are estimates of what is the size of
India’s middle class. This class may be divided into two components – the upper
middle class and the lower middle class. Both taken together may constitute 25
per cent of the population (around 350-370 million). Though a major section of
this class believes that the government’s programmes are geared for the rich or
the economically weaker sections and the poor, social scientists are of the
opinion that the middle class has, over the years, benefitted greatly from the
government’s development work.
Liberalisation and privatisation during the
early years of the 90s, the high economic growth as also measures such as
building roads and highways, modernisation of airports, bullet train etc, have
been taken up keeping the upper echelons of the middle class in mind. One may
recall here that in the 79s and 80s inter-State highways and roads were built
on land taken away, quite forcibly, from poor people. Compensation was meagre
as there was no proper land acquisition policy and rehabilitation at that time.
Even if we look at the rural sector, the
middle level traders and farmers benefit the most due to better communication
facilitates and better physical infrastructure. Also having no financial
weakness, the price realisation for their products are much better. The result
of most decisions and expenditure incurred by the government is geared towards
the well-off sections and middle sections. However, to camouflage the people,
schemes and programmes meant for the EWS and poorer sections are announced with
much fanfare with no concrete results,
Since the time of Narasimha Rao government
and specially the present government special attention has been paid to the
middle class, specially those in the upper echelons. Added to the religious
twist to nationalism, the BJP has held sway over the middle class as also the
lower income groups and the economically weaker sections. The party leadership
may not have done much for the impoverished sections but Prime Minister Modi’s
histrionics and ‘false’ promises has mesmerized this large section. Political
analysts believe that he is an ‘actor par excellence’ and there are few in the
world who can match his communication skills and art of swaying the masses in
his favour.
One may recall that after the 2014 elections,
Modi coined the slogan “Sabka saath sabka
vikas,’ and later added sabka
vishwas’. But much of this has remained a slogan with the poorer sections
suffering the most while freedom of expression i.e. the right to dissent being
curtailed with most institutions said to be losing basic democratic values. One
may refer here to a recent Supreme Court order which accused the Centre of
protecting the interests of business rather than the common man.
The court was hearing a PIL filed by a UP
based businessman, and some other who challenged the constitutional validity of
the RBI’s March 27 circular through which the moratorium was granted to help
borrowers tide over the Covid-induced crisis. The three-member bench said the government
was “hiding behind the RBI” and refusing to clarify its stand on the subject
despite a clear directive from the court. “You cannot be interested only in
business and not about the sufferings of people…. The problem has been created
by your (Centre’s) lockdown. This happened because you (Centre) have locked
down the whole country,” the court noted. In fact Justice Bhushan told the Solicitor-General,
appearing for the Centre, “This is not the time to consider the (plight of)
businesses. The plight of the people has to be considered also,”
With the change both in the social and
economic situation, the Modi government realises that the BJP’s survival and
continuance in power is vital. As such, even in the midst of the ravaging
corona pandemic, the bhumi puja was
held last month with the ultimate objective to complete around 50 to 70 per
cent of the Ram temple at Ayodhya by 2022 end. Thus, the opening of the temple
in early 2023 has been timed keeping in view the next Lok Sabha elections,
which should galvanise the votes of Hindus, mostly those who are not educated
enough and may believe that this has been a big achievement of the BJP.
The Congress, though may not play the
religion card, it has lately been talking of its implementation of schemes for
the poor, enacting policies which benefitted the middle income sections as well
the rich class, when it was in power. Business houses got various incentives
compared to those meted out to small and marginal farmers. In fact here, the
record of the Modi government has been slightly better.
Delving deep into the record of successive
governments, it appears that favours extended to the urban middle class by way
of keeping food prices in check in cities and peripheral areas has had an impact
on the farming community, which has not been able to raise prices in tune with
increased production costs.
Remember, well-known economist Prof. Michael
Lipton had a few decades back observed that policies adopted in India helped
subsidise the urban middle class at the cost of the urban poor. Even the
industrial class has been subsidised by way of extending various facilities in
terms of land, power etc. Thus, of one analysis the per capita income –
percentage wise of different sections – it would be evident that there has been
a perceptible increase in the earnings of the middle class as compared to the
cost of LIG and EWS groups.
This has happened primarily because most
policy makers and politicians come from the urban middle class. The
undersigned, while imparting training lessons to trainee officers (in Bhubaneswar,
Kolkata and Delhi) and also post-graduate classes, found that they have little
idea of the impoverishment of the rural sector and do not mind the
urban-oriented planning by successive governments. They fail to understand the
sufferings of the rural population due to lack of adequate measures and
resources for development. Being mostly from the middle class, bureaucrats and
politicians have very little concern for the villages and their upliftment.
For good and real development, there is a
dire need not to be biased rather focus resources on those who are in majority
and actually need help and support. Wooing upper sections of society or the
middle class needs to be done away with and special attention needs to be paid
to LIG, EWS and the poor with special focus on the rural sector, specially the
backward districts of the country. This has been echoed by various
developmental economists in India and abroad and it is high time a serious note
is made and the much-needed shift takes place. ----INFA
(Copyright,
India News & Feature Alliance)
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