Kalyug: Descent into darkness

Between democracy and darkness stands the judiciary. It stands heads and shoulders above the judicial systems in Asia. But it is in rapid decline. Ahead is pitch darkness
Colin Gonsalves Delhi

In the 61st year of the republic, surely, India has transited into Kalyug. Surveys of the Union of India as well as expert reports published by the Arjun Sengupta committee and the NC Saxena Committee appointed by the Central government reveal that almost 77 per cent of the population in India are below the poverty line in terms of the food intake minimum standard of 2,400 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day, a standard set by the Planning Commission in 1979.

Over 50 per cent of all women and children are malnourished with 17 per cent of the child population being so severely malnourished that a whole new generation of Indians will become adults with malformed brains and stunted growth. Even in the urban areas where conspicuous consumption is always on display, malnourishment of children is upwards of 50 per cent.

This is the spectre of starving India.

For the top 20 per cent of the population (and less than 3 per cent of the sensex/stock market) who have experienced the licence to loot, corrupt and cheat during the ongoing period of globalisation, this is Satyug. Since the beginning of the decline of Nehruvian social democracy in the early 1990s and the establishment of what is called the liberalisation regime, the rich have never had it so good.

A seismic shift has taken place in the thinking of politicians, corporations, administrators and judges, fuelled partly by international capital and the devious planning of the World Bank and the IMF. Whereas earlier and in accordance with the constitutional mandate, the country was to be taken along as a whole, the resources of the State were to be used to subserve the common good and a reasonable part of the gross domestic product (GDP) was to be kept aside to subsidise education, health, food, housing and transportation for the working people. With globalisation all this began to change drastically, systematically and with abject cold-blooded deliberation.

Education for all was quickly jettisoned with the argument that it is impossible to educate so many poor children, that it is inadvisable and unproductive to spread resources thinly and that since in any case the middle classes are the engines of change, State resources ought to be concentrated on them if the GDP is to be pushed up. Thus, while fancy educational institutions multiply and students' fees rise many times over, poor students learn under trees or in the open (in freezing cold or scorching summer) without schools, textbooks and often without teachers and the officially promised mid-day meals.

The Supreme Court in TMA Pai's case, made a disgraceful decision opening the doors for commercialisation and privatisation of education and casting a shadow on the earlier decision in Unnikrishnan's case correctly providing for strict State regulation and prohibition on commercialisation.

Similarly, while some of the finest health facilities in the world sprung up in the cities of India, government public health facilities went into a tailspin. The public health centers lacked medicines, doctors, testing equipment, beds and food for poor patients. As the despair with public health care  is increasing, the World Bank merrily came along with its prescription for "user fees" requiring people below the poverty line to pay for health services. Dalit or poor women delivering on the pavements outside government hospitals became a common sight.