Disparities In India A Special Reference To Economic Disparities

INTRODUCTION:

Nature has created difference among people, among regions and among situations. These differences are known as natural differences and are taken generally as granted. The conditions of these natural differences are also called as constraints. However, man has always made efforts to minimise these constraints to advance on the path of development. On the other hand the differences created by man on account of social, economic, political, religious and cultural aspects are called not as differences but inequalities or disparities. These disparities are called respectively as social, economic, political, religious and cultural disparities. Among all the economic disparities are critical in nature and are the issue of great concern in the modern world. Economic disparities help other disparities be widened. Therefore, if economic disparities are mitigated, other disparities are automatically narrowed. An economic disparity can be defined as a condition in which a person or persons though legally having equal rights is or are but for economic reasons deprived to some extent from available opportunities of fulfilling economic, social, political, cultural and/or religious needs.

 The word ‘deprived’ though generally reflects not a good sense but economic disparities are not always or to all extents proved as evil. Economic disparities are essential too because (economic) class system can’t be established in an economy without economic disparity similarly as stratification of a society can’t come about without socio-cultural disparities and without (economic) class system no economy can run similarly as without stratification a social entity can’t run or be stable. A perfect running and ideal equilibrium of any economy need to some extent the existence of economic disparities. If, other things remaining the same, we change the level of economic disparities in an economy from zero onward and study the effect on the working and stability of the economy, we shall observe improvement in working and stability of the society. But the rate of improvement goes on decreasing with the increase in the level of economic disparity. Thus with increasing level of economic disparities a point will be reached where the rate of improvement becomes zero and the economy attains ideal equilibrium and perfect working. Beyond this point the effect of any increase in the level of economic disparities becomes negative and thence the economic disparities start hampering welfare of the economy. Long ago almost all countries of the world surpassed not only this point of ideal equilibrium but also the tolerable level of economic disparities by covering a long distance on the path of economic development. In many countries, especially the developing ones, the economic disparities have become widened on account of improper development plans and attained such a high level that not only the economic growth is being badly hit but social and cultural fabric also has become under tremendous pressure. In every economy the people have become divided into two separate groups – the poor group and the prosperous group. The poor mass comprises the substantial majority of the world population and there has become a big gulf between poor and prosperous or rich people regarding wealth, wage, education and income. Therefore, at present the economic disparities mean deprivation or privation of a large mass and are thence taken as great evil and a challenge to the public welfare through economic development or growth.

Though the absolute economic equality or parity is nowhere in the world. Neither it ever existed nor is it desirable. Whatever the socialists emphasise or loudly advocate, the absolute economic parity will never be achieved and if achieved, it will slash and shatter the economic system. All the same, steps towards the lesser widened and tolerable level of economic disparities is not only desirable but also a pressing need of today’s economic development or growth programmes in that the present condition of largely widened un-tolerable economic disparities especially in the developing countries is making the life of a large mass of poor population hellish whereby the very objective of raising high the public life standard is being forfeited. The mitigation and the achievement of tolerable level of economic disparities (economic equality)  can be more rapidly brought about by market based capitalist system or by fully planned socialistic system, may be a matter of controversy but the notion that economic disparities (the un-tolerable level of economic disparities) in socialist economies are lesser widened, is totally a myth. For example, the communist economy of Russia and the socialist economy of China are not free from the problem of economic disparities. The un-tolerable level of economic disparities (hereinafter referred to as economic disparities only) creates problems by badly affecting the economy. The economic equality that is the tolerable level of economic disparities is a relative term which depends upon the socio-cultural network of an economy and varies economy to economy. In America the level of economic disparities is very high but the aftermaths are not as severe as in some other economies sustaining lesser levels of economic disparities.

ECONOMIC DISPARITIES IN INDIA:

As regards to India, the history of economic disparities goes back to the British rule. The British government in India developed those regions which were important for them on economic and administrative grounds while rest of the regions were left neglected. Big industrial cities were developed at sea shores and education opportunities were developed in the nearby areas to fulfil the need of cheap manpower. They developed canal irrigation but only in those areas where agricultural land was fertile. They supported social elites and rich families (economic elites) for seeking help in administration and keeping firm grip on the general mass. These elites acted to a considerable extent as agents of British rule and grabbed wealth and resources by exploiting the general mass on account of the support and some special rights provided to them by the government. This created severe economic disparities and as a result thereof the already existing other disparities also got impetus. Thus at the time of independence India was characterised by different types of disparities. Through the planned economic development since 1951 India has though succeeded in mitigating a few types of socio-cultural disparities to some extent but the economic disparities became more widened instead of being mitigated during the plan period. The ratio of the minimum and the maximum income and wealth stands risen even above the level of one to hundred fifty (1: 150) in India. The poor majority in remote countryside is leading life at hardly a subsistence level while there are numerous cases of dwelling only two or sometimes three persons but with five to ten servants, two to four luxury cars, two to four dogs along with some other pets and three to six telephone connections in a single but big villa with all sophisticated luxurious amenities in posh colonies of metropolitan cities. Eastern Uttar Pradesh has only traces of industrialisation while Western Uttar Pradesh is covered with the polluted smoke coming out from the chimneys of industrial herds. People in the middle hilly north are walking on foot six to ten kilo metres (on an average) daily to reach destinations while a wide area of planes is polluted by the smoke of traffic running fast on highways, roads and link-roads even around the rural villages. The rural youths are struggling for the nominal fees to get access to education even in the government aided rural colleges lacking in resources while the children of urban prosperous minority are simply passing the classes in five star self financing  urban institutes and that too on the basis of costly tuitions. According to a survey for the year 2009 the per year consumption of gold is 800 tonnes out of which 600 tonnes is used for jewellery while per capita income in India is only Rs. 38000/ – per year and only 3% of the people pay income tax regularly and systematically. The prevailing price of gold (near about Rs. 18000/ – per 10 grams.) makes the amount spent towards gold for jewellery quite big and indicates that great many portion of this amount is financed by black money. Near about 700 million people earn even less than Rs. 30/- daily, 300 million people are earning more than Rs. 20 million per year, 390 million people are still living below the poverty line, 600 million are drinking impure water, 350 million are deprived from the primary education, 620 million are without their own house, 150 million people have a wealth worth more than Rs. 10 million each, 24 persons have acquired a wealth in the multiple of a billion of rupees each, daily 200 million people sleep on footpath in cities, average yearly income of the persons engaged in politics is Rs. 0.9 million, only 150 million people spend Rs. 500 million per year towards bottled drinking water, 15 million people live in hotels instead of their houses and 70 million persons have more than one house to live. 

TYPES OF ECONOMIC DISPARITIES IN INDIA:

Despite various remedial measures taken by the government through its fiscal policy and by the central bank (the Reserve Bank of India) through its monetary policy Indian economy is still trapped in different inextricable and interwoven types of economic disparities as given below.

1. Income and Wealth Disparity:

Income distribution sufficiently unequal even in the pre-independence period but it became more unequal during the plan period after independence. 50% of the total national income goes to the hands of only 20% of the total population and rest 80% of the total population has to depend on the remaining 50% part of total national income. As regards to the distribution of wealth upper 10% of the households own 57% of the total built-up property whence only 43% of the total build-up property is distributed among 90% of the households. Similarly, 72% of the total farming families are marginal farmers and own only 10% of the total agricultural land while 28% of the farming families possess 73% of the total land. The lower strata poor majority is trapped in the problem of arranging bellyful bread while the upper strata rich minority is lacking the heads of expenditure to cover their large incomes.   

2. Education Disparity:

In remote rural areas there is widespread poverty and approximately 80% of the families are living in acute privation. In the upper strata of these families family income is too low to pay either for education in the low standard rural institutes or for good quality education in the well equipped urban institutes. Moreover, in the lower strata of these families a child becomes earning hand by working as child labour at the age of seven or eight years.  The sentiments and feelings regarding education or future welfare of the child droop before the agony of unsatisfied basic needs due to privation. Therefore, a child in these acutely poor families is proved an asset rather than liability, in its stead. Therefore, in widespread remote areas children either have no access to education or they get substandard education in the government aided and under-equipped rural institutes affiliated to state level boards or un-reputed university. On the other hand, the children of rural and urban prosperous minority are getting good quality education in well equipped urban institutes being either university or affiliated to C. B. S. E. Or I. C. S. E. or some reputed university.

3. Regional Development Disparity:

A considerable number of socially and economically sound and effective elites had already emerged in cities and urban towns during the British period. After independence these elites either entered into the government or supported their men to win election and thereby enter into the government. This made them interfere in the formulation and execution of development plans, on one hand, and in the fixation of priorities, on the other. Thereby Indian development plans became urban oriented and concentrating on rich minority. Therefore, great many portion of the fruits of planned economic development remained centred towards and around the urban cities, towns and those rural regions where natural resources are abundantly available. Thus rural regions devoid of natural resources lagged far behind in the run of economic development and thence remained either undeveloped or insignificantly developed in comparison to the urban and the naturally resourced regions.  

4. Sectoral Development Disparity:

Instead of starting from the very beginning and covering the right locus of economic development India, being enticed and allured by the surprisingly fascinating fruits of heavy industrialisation, started its efforts but having longed for being developed and grabbing fruits thereof in a haste. Thus India lost sequences in its development path. Thus agriculture, the spine of Indian economy, was ignored. Thereby agricultural development and the development of agriculture based small and cottage industries lagged far behind the development of heavy industries. Thus the village industries were shattered and the villages were ruined on account of the acute shortage of energetic workforce, service centers, infrastructure, intellectuals etc. emerged there due to the rural-urban migration. In this way the industrial sector became more developed than the agriculture sector and heavy industry sector became more developed than the small and cottage industry sector. Moreover, during industrial development both the private and the public sector were aimed at to be developed simultaneously for healthy competition to save the general public from being exploited by the profit motivated private producers. But the corruption prevailing in public sector and the manipulations by the private producers the public sector industries sustained heavy losses whereby a large number of these industries became auctioned to private hands and that too under some political strategies. The remaining ones also are running with old technology without renovation. Thus the private sector became more developed and flourished in comparison to the public sector.  

5. Technology Disparity:

The multinational companies and the heavy industries of private sector are running with modern technology and earning large abnormal profits while almost all small and cottage industries along with the industries of the public sector are running either with normal profits or even loss. A number of public sector industries with loss are still running only because of some political strategy of the government or the public pressure. Similarly a large number of small and cottage industries are running without profit only because the family workforce working therein is getting salary. The technology used in all of these with loss or without profit industries is traditional, old, obsolete or rather discarded too while that of the heavy abnormal profit earning MNC’s and private heavy industries is modern and rather latest technology.     

6. Credit Disparity:

The (central and state) governments in their fiscal policies and RBI (Reserve Bank of India) in its credit control have been talking quite loudly about subsidies, rural credit, agricultural credit, small and cottage industrial finance and credit to poor mass. The statistics also show quite big amounts. But the story of resultant effects remained different. The great many part of the subsidies was grabbed by undeserving socio-economic and political elites on the basis of false poverty documents and fake small or cottage industrial units. Thus the actually needy persons and small or cottage industrial units went on sustaining the lack of subsidy and credit facilities. In case of subsidies the prevailing corruption and the target based policy rather helped the malpractice get impetus. Moreover, the prevailing corruption and target based policy along with the profit motivated nature of the commercial banks strengthened the malpractice in case of credit distribution. Furthermore, the actually needy poor people and the small or cottage industrial units were not having enough assets to be pledged, wherever it was required, against loan. This factor also prevented them to avail the available credit facility. On the other hand, heavy industrial units, business houses and socio-economic and political elites were above these constraints and therefore went on enjoying not only the share of subsidies and credit assigned to them but also a sufficiently large portion of the share assigned to poor mass and the small or cottage industrial units.

Causes of Economic Disparity:

(a)     Political Cause: – On account of the politics of defections, the debacles or falls of governments and vote politics the (central and state) governments became politically weak. Therefore the priority of the government became to please the rich minority so that it may run. To mitigate resentment and dissatisfaction among the general mass it had to play pseudo role of and on to remedy the poor mass through various unsuccessful employment and poor welfare programmes. Therefore, the rich minority and the areas or regions relating to the rich minority became rather developed by getting larger portion of the total fruits of development move of the country. Moreover, the regions or communities relating to educated and politically aware people also got greater share in economic development on account of their greater political  pressure on the government.

(b)     Administrative Cause: – The persons in administrators group either belong to the prosperous group of the society or come under pressure of politicians and socio-economic elites to direct the development benefits discriminatingly towards these politicians and elites. The elites and politicians not only pressurised in free but even enticed and allured the administration personnel by bribing them whereby corruption emerged in government departments. This corruption initially starting from these high leveled administrators later on percolated downward even to the lowest segment of the society and thus became the present condition of general corruption in India. Moreover, to show high performance and good work these administrators also supported the investment and the development projects in more developed areas to obtain early returns.

(c)      Unequal Distribution of Natural Resources: – The distribution of natural resources is not equal among the different parts and the different regions of the country. The industrialisation thence became brought about fast in the regions and the parts rich in natural resources. This resulted into faster development of education and employment level in those regions and parts in comparison to that in the regions and parts lacking in the availability of natural resources.

(d)     Caste System: – Indian mass especially Hindus are divided into different castes under a caste system based on the strong social stratification. Despite considerable efforts have been made by the government and non-government organisations for social reforms to root out the malign traditions and social evils like untouchability, the curses of the strong stratification of the society, but the people of lower segment (castes) of the society in many parts, especially the remote ones, are still prevented from equal rights to education, employment, profession and facilities. This makes them economically weak. They are prevented forcibly by the people of upper segments (castes) even from casting votes in the general elections. Oh God! Kindly help the societies in these though limited at present regions desist from so slapping on the face of humanity.

Discussion:

On account of the above discussed economic disparities India’s growth rate has been low, there is still persistent poverty in the widespread rural sector, agriculture is still undeveloped, growth is unbalanced, crime is rising with increasing rate, embezzlements and scams have become general haps, unemployment problem has become a mammoth, electric supply to agriculture and industry is not sufficient, even baby food and drugs are not free from adulteration, drug market is stuffed with duplicate medicines, hospitals are full of dirt, roads and even the highways are full of pits, tails of irrigation canals are dry, there is rush of baggers at crossings and corners of markets, journeys are full of accidents and unscheduled buses are running on the roads, news papers are full of crime (rape, abduction, kidnap, murder etc.) news from the relatively developed regions, child labour and bonded labour are common and a number of regions are burning with the heat of separatism. This is the present scenario of independent and democratic India even after its having travelled for 59 years on the path of planned economic development. Not only the economic but all social and cultural fields seem as if distorted. Before independence only economic condition was disrupted but socio-cultural base was strong and praiseworthy on account of its limpidity and broadness. If India continued moving on the same track of planned economic development without taking a drastic turn to re-fix the priorities, reformulate the strategies, re-select the programmes and reconstruct the plans so as to make its development move compatible to its socio-economic and cultural fabric, the economic disparities along with all other disparities will attain such a high level that one day whole system of the country will become totally shattered.

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