India: Shining India’s Light on all Citizens

By Praful Patel
Vice President
South Asia Region
The World Bank
Oped Special to India Today

India stands at a defining moment in its history. Thanks to spectacular economic growth, it now has the opportunity to wipe out poverty within the next generation. Few developing countries have achieved this, but India’s dramatic progress against poverty over the past decade gives cause for optimism.

Kamalamma, whom I met in October during a visit to Ibrahimpally village in Andhra Pradesh, proves the point. She is one of the 80 million Indians who, by dint of their enterprise and energy – and the small space created by opportunity – have pulled themselves out of poverty in the last 10 years.

 

At Independence, more than half of Indians were living in poverty. Today, this figure is down to about a quarter. Nonetheless, in absolute numbers, poverty’s challenge remains daunting. More than 260 million Indians – roughly twice the population of Brazil – live in deprivation. One in every four poor persons in the world is Indian and one in every four Indians is poor.

 

If India can meet the 11th Plan target of 10 percent growth, it can bring the percentage of people living in poverty down to single digits within a decade. Even with a more modest growth of 7 percent p.a., the proportion of people living in poverty will still be halved, from the current 28 percent to 14 percent.

 

This is, in essence, my vision of what could be possible in India in the next ten years.

 

But statistics, by their very matter-of-factness, can numb the harsh reality of poverty. It is not about numbers or money. Poverty is about lives on the margins of society; dependent on barely productive lands and livelihoods, people always at the tail-end of basic infrastructure, be it drinking water, irrigation, or roads, excluded from access to basic health, education, personal security, and

political representation. A single disaster – disease, drought, death in the family – leads to

the abyss. Being poor means being invisible, voiceless and powerless.

 

So eliminating poverty is not a matter of reducing to zero the number living under a dollar-a-day. Poverty’s wasteland stretches far beyond, touching millions of Indians living under two-dollars-a-day and millions more under five-dollars-a-day, neither of which is anything less than degrading or deprived. Eliminating poverty requires a broad-based strategy that engages all Indians, that offers inclusion and representation along with sustainable livelihoods.

 

The ‘Two Indias’ of the subcontinent has long been a cliché. Economists model it in their development plans; politicians exploit it in election campaigns; and travel writers weave it into brochures as the eternal enigma of India. Like all clichés, however, it is very much rooted in reality.

 

Even as India blazes a path to become the world’s third largest economy, her lagging states are mired in some of the world’s highest levels of poverty. Some human development indicators for the nation as a whole are among the worst in developing countries. For example, India’s child malnutrition rate is double that of sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Even in India’s more prosperous states, there are dark pockets of deprivation: Maharashtra, where Mumbai paces itself against Shanghai, contains 10 of India’s 100 poorest districts and has among the highest rates of farmer suicides.

 

When I talk about this to friends or family in India, I often see their eyes glaze over: they slip from polite interest to pointed indifference. Living in the India of shining prosperity, they have scant interest in the lives of those who live in the penumbra of the second India.

 

Why should poverty matter to us all? Apart from the nation’s moral responsibility to assure each citizen a life of dignity, there are practical arguments why the fight against poverty should concern all Indians.

 

First, the faultline between the two Indias will only widen if those on one side are left behind, exacerbating existing socio-regional-ethnic differences and sparking fresh ones. Despite recent progress, India’s lower-income regions have not seen growth accelerate. Bihar averaged 2.2 percent growth between 1980 and 2004, as compared to 7.2 percent in Karnataka. We know that higher inequality makes it tougher for growth to reduce poverty. This may explain why, during the 1990s, each percentage point growth in per capita GDP reduced poverty by only 0.7 percent in India. In stark contrast, Vietnam, which has had more equal development, reduced poverty by 1.4 percent.

 

Second, eliminating poverty will enlist another quarter of the population in productive economic activity. Imagine how much more spectacular India’s story could be if it builds the human capital of the 28 percent left outside. Everyone talks of India’s ‘demographic dividend’. With 60 percent of citizens below the age of 30, it can supply young, dynamic human resources to an aging world. But this dividend will be squandered unless all strata of society join to invest in the potential of India’s youth.

 

So what must India do to eliminate poverty? The Government’s vision of inclusive growth through infrastructure development, revitalized agriculture, and better service delivery sets the right priorities. And it can generate the resources to meet these goals. But, to my mind, the answer lies not in spending more but in spending well. Inclusive, equalizing growth will benefit all sections of the community, not just those struggling to catch up.

 

India already has elaborate and expensive programs in almost every sector: public health, education, transportation, drinking water. Yet immunization rates for some childhood diseases are actually falling. Two-thirds of children in government primary schools cannot read a simple story; half cannot solve a simple sum. Farmers lose more than a third of their fresh produce to transportation delays and poor market linkages. India has already dazzled the world with its creativity in the global services sector. It is now time to do the same for social services. Reducing poverty further will mean moving the focus from outlays to outcomes, and developing better ways to deliver services.

 

Making these changes calls for improved governance and accountability. India has come far in setting up instruments and institutions working toward these ends. Decentralization, the Right to Information Act, and the citizens’ report cards of Bangalore and the Bhagidari model of Delhi can – if well monitored – help poor people acquire greater command over the factors that influence their lives.

 

India also has successful indigenous examples of development innovations like the women’s self-help groups in Andhra Pradesh, the milk producers of Anand, the SEWA women, just to mention a few. All of these can be scaled up to good effect.

 

India today faces a moment of opportunity. It possesses fiscal and political space, rich development experience, improved accountability tools and thriving democratic traditions to enable millions more like Kamlamma to rise out of poverty. Properly applied, these can unleash enough energy to bring the light of shining India to all its citizens. The elimination of poverty lies within the nation’s grasp.