The
educated people of the nation have proved their mettle at home and
abroad. We have proved our might in science and technology.
Industries are excelling and so also individual entrepreneurs and
professionals, barring the past few years due to the global meltdown
and internal regression. Nevertheless it is one side of the coin that
shines at home and in the global arena. It is this side of coin that
the economic pundits and fortune tellers rely on to predict India
will be a superpower by 2050. The author wants this wishful forecast
to come true.
What
worries the author and many of his kind is the other side of the coin
that forms the bulk of our country: 86 percent, or more than 100
crore impoverished people (Table 2.9 (II) and clippings 14, 14A, 17,
19, 20, 24, and more). There are similar numbers of illiterates or
semi-literates (Chapter 8.5). It is logical that those who are
educated (only 14 percent or about 18 crore) of our populace are
usually capable of treading their path to success. Not those who
remain un-educated or semi-educated.
The
author is concerned about this side of the coin; swaggering with the
success of merely 14 percent makes little sense. Surely, we, as
concerned people, cannot play ostrich to the 86 percent part of the
coin.
The
perennial failures of our governments to address these strata of our
country continue unabated as researched, analysed and put forward
through this book. This is despite enormous and ever-rising quotas
and reservations (in jobs and education), various kinds of economic
and social reliefs in forms of NREGA, mid-day meals, farmers’ loan
waivers, Rojgar Yojnas, subsidies on loans, electricity and
ridiculously low prices for food items like wheat and rice, food
security bills, and other dole-outs to alleviate poverty. Reliefs and
dole-outs are eating into our resources, but the plight of the
impoverished
refuses
to improve. In fact it is worsening as per new finds of the
NSSO (clipping 73A). It is suggestive of the fact that our
governments (Legislature and Executive) are not able to address the
maladies ailing the nation in real terms. The World Bank has also
expressed similar views of India's
Fundamental Raights(clipping
8D).
Moreover,
all relief measures are indicative of economic slavery and lack of
liberty, and are tantamount to gross human rights violations (HRVs).
This is because there is a lack of the creation of opportunities and
avenues to earn their living in a natural and dignified way. Reliefs
and reservations belittle human self-esteem and dignity and violate
our basic objectives. United Nations terms this practice “regressive
measures which impede the Constitutional goal”3 as described
under Section 4.1
(II).
It is strictly incumbent upon the State to create conditions and
avenues (for the development of the nation) rather than consistently
resorting to charities and dole-outs that are conspicuous
compulsions of perennial under-development, and a testimony of
poor governance.
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