A Million Mutinies
India’s demographic and economic changes are rapidly altering the society’s fabric andcharacter—and shaping her polity as well. But the scale and nature of those changes are stillto be understood. Much of the Indian success story—if there’s one—is attributed to theeconomic reforms aka economic liberalization that were chosen as an imperative in 1991.Since then, successive Indian governments have pushed the market-driven policies ever morevigorously affecting every strata of the society. Billed as the world’s biggest Parliamentarydemocracy, India is witnessing a steady withdrawal of the idea of the welfare State enshrinedin its Constitution with the rapid growth of the private capital that is monopolistic in itscharacter, leading to the expansion of crony capitalism explicit in the way wealth and incomeis getting concentrated in the hands of a few, pauperizing many. The chosen path is by design.
This shift has to be contextually appropriated with reference to the earlier policyagenda focus in newly independent India which, while setting a modern, progressivetrajectory of growth concept, still remained acutely aware of the need to have a range ofaffirmative interventions. It was thought in the early days of Planning Commission of India, abody with a statutory mandate to organize planned approach for growth that India will have tohave robust extension and education services, especially ensuring participation fromcommunities. Indian experience with anchoring faith in communities could be seen in manyinstitutional extensions in the decadal patterns in 50s, 60s and early 70s. These were the daysof transformative shifts in favor of social capital. Later this thinking started undergoinganother shift of thoughts that gradually oversaw the withdrawal of welfare components inState policy.
Alas, it isn’t an isolated India story. The “One versus 99,” as it is often called, is nowa more global saga. In Asia too it is a stark reality. Japan to some extent has managed to keepinequalities under the tabs, but it is showing signs of bucking that trend. Economic inequalityis ubiquitous, policy-driven, and structural. If the world map were to be dotted today withconflicts and crises of different hues—political, social, economic, religious, or even cultural—it would have to be painted in different shades of red. From the so-called democracies to theauthoritarian states, from the rich nations to the developing economies to the abjectly poorcountries, there is perhaps hardly any place on the planet that is free of conflicts with bitterconsequences for humanity. Discounting the sharp ideological expressions, it is nowconfirmed alarmingly that the human interactive systems dealing with social, political andeconomic constructs are failing to accommodate and address one of the fundamentalchallenges of civilized world: inequality.
