WHOSE INDIA IS IT ANYWAY?

2nd Pan-IIM Alumni Gulf Summit

30 October 2010
 POVERTY IN INDIA
•  National Poverty Line : 29%
•  US$ 1.25/day : 42%
•  US$ 2/day : 76%
•  MPI * : 55%
•  < Rs. 20/day ^ : 77%

*  UNDP Multi-dimensional Poverty Index: Education, Health, Standard of

Living (sanitation, electricity, drinking water, cooking fuel, assets)
^  National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS)
report 2007
EMERGING SUPEROWER?
 GOING BACKWARDS?
•  Amidst unprecedented economic growth as measured by GDP…
•  Wealth increase of close to US$1 Trillion between 2003-2007 in the Indian
stock market. Second highest number of dollar billionaires.
•  G-20 membership, UN Security Council aspirations, growing space
programme…
•  Ranked 134th in the 2010 UN HDI index. It is our lowest rank for over 12 years.
In 2007-08 we were 132nd. In 1992, India was 122nd.
•  Infant mortality (1.9 million of 26 million babies born this year will die before
they turn 5 mostly from preventable causes), malnutrition (46% of children are
underweight for their age 79% are anemic) virtually unchanged over the past 2
decades. Static rates of school completion (10% secondary), child labour.
Declining gender ratios. Increasing numbers of children work in the sex trade.
•  Over 85 per cent of rural households are either landless, sub-marginal,
marginal or small farmers, a statistic that has not changed in the past 15 years.
•  Peasant households in debt doubled from 26 per cent of farm households to
48.6 per cent in the first decade of “economic reforms”. Less than 0.2% of GDP
invested in agriculture. 6000 farmers committed suicide last year
 HPI Probability of Adult illiteracy People not Children
not surviving rate using an underweight
to age 40 (% age 15+) improved for age
(%) water source (% aged
(%) under 5)
1. Czech 1. Hong Kong, 1.Georgia 1. Barbados 1. Croatia
Republic China (SAR)

86. Djibouti 103. Bolivia 118. Congo 74. Kyrgyzstan 135. Yemen
(DR)

87. Cambodia 104. Bhutan 119. Egypt 75. Syrian Arab 136. Timor-
Republic Leste

88. India 105. India 120. India 76. India 137. India

89. Ghana 106. Yemen 121. Ghana 77. China 138.

Bangladesh

90. Malawi 107. Papua 122. Rwanda 122. Rwanda

New Guinea

135. 153. Lesotho 151. Mali 150.

Afghanistan Afghanistan
 RISING INEQUALITY
•  While inequality was stable (in urban India) and declining (in rural India) in
the 1980s, this trend was reversed in the 1990s.
•  The Gini coefficient for India rose from 0.303 in 1994 to 0.325 in 2005, from
0.285 to 0.298 for the rural areas and from 0.343 to 0.378 for the urban
areas.
•  The top 1% of Indians have more than doubled their share of income since
the ’80s
•  The highest income increases in the 1990s have been in three sectors -
stock markets, real estate and gold. Less than 7% of Indians own stocks.
•  India has performed worse than China or Brazil in achieving poverty
reduction.
•  “Bad inequalities” - structural barriers that prevent individuals from
connecting to markets, and limit investment and accumulation of human and
physical capital, such as geographic poverty traps, patterns of social
exclusion, lack of access to credit and insurance, etc.
•  The way ahead for India would be to combine “China’s growth-promoting
policies with Brazil’s social policies”.

Source: World Bank working paper by Martin Ravallion

POVERTY GAP : URBAN – RURAL
 POVERTY GAP - STATES
Rank State Population MPI Poor %

1 Kerala 35.0 15.9

2 Goa 1.6 21.7
3 Punjab 27.1 26.2
4 Himachal Pradesh 6.7 31.0
5 Tamil Nadu 68.0 32.4
6 Uttaranchal 9.6 40.3
7 Maharashtra 108.7 40.1
8 Haryana 24.1 41.6
9 Gujarat 57.3 41.5
10 Jammu And Kashmir 12.2 43.8
11 Andhra Pradesh 83.9 44.7
12 Karnataka 58.6 46.1
13 NE Indian States 44.2 57.6
14 West Bengal 89.5 58.3
15 Orissa 40.7 64.0
16 Rajasthan 65.4 64.2
17 Uttar Pradesh 192.6 69.9
18 Chhattisgarh 23.9 71.9
19 Madhya Pradesh 70.0 69.5
20 Jharkhand 30.5 77.0
21 Bihar 95.0 81.4

India 1,164.7 55.4

 POVERTY GAP - CASTE
Group MPI Poor %
Scheduled Caste 66
Scheduled Tribe 81

Other Backward 58
Class
India 55
 GENDER DISPARITY
Gender Development Index as % of
Human Development Index
1. Mongolia (100.0%)
137. United Arab Emirates (97.2%)
138. Sierra Leone (97.1%)

139. India (97.1%)

140. Sudan (97.0%)
141. Benin (97.0%)
155. Afghanistan (88.0%)
MEET DHARMARAJ
 MEET RABIYA
Mosammat Rabiya is a thirty-five-
year-old widow with 2 teenage
sons from Gobindpur in Bihar.

She works the fields of farmers in her

and neighbouring villages, often
more than ten kilometres away.
She is paid in kind and can keep
9-10% of the produce (depending
on the generosity of the farmer)
that she helps to harvest.

At other times during the agricultural

season, she is employed by
farmers to do weeding, for which
she is paid Rs. 25 a day. Such
work lasts no more than two
months a year.

Both of her sons are unemployed and

help their mother around the
house.
 RABIYA BELIEVES
“Money can’t buy you happiness.

Well-being is about being able to abide by principles that

are important to you.

When I am able to demonstrate my integrity (imaan) and

faithfulness (wafa) without being disrespected or
humiliated, I am ‘well’.

But that is not what I see around me. Those who

demonstrate these qualities are further crushed,
demeaned and broken.

These principles are not allowed to flower. That is the root

cause of ill-being.”
“If, despite the
brutality of their
methods, the
Maoists have yet
gained ground, it is
because the Indian
State has treated its
tribal citizens with
condescension and
contempt.”

-  Ramachandra Guha
(not yet accused of sedition or
waging war against the
State)
 DENIAL, APATHY, CYNICISM
•  Secession
–  Public goods: Education, Healthcare, Security, Infrastructure,
Media
–  Politics
•  Subversion
–  Corruption
–  Capture of voice, assets, institutions and power
•  Worldview
–  Homo Hierarchicus
–  Homo Economicus
–  Philanthropy, citizenship
–  Criminalisation of dissent
–  India’s place and role in the world
 INDIA’S IS NOT AN
ECONOMIC CRISIS.

IT’S A CRISIS OF
DEMOCRACY.
 WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
•  Hubris vs. humility
– acknowledging complicity
– respect those who live the lives we want to
change
•  Human, political vs. technocratic approach
•  Complementing, supplementing, enabling,
connecting rather than re-inventing
•  Stand up, speak up for what counts
 “The difference between what
we do and what we are capable
of doing would suffice to solve
most of the world's problems.”

- Mahatma Gandhi