इस समय देश के समक्ष जो चुनौतियां हैं, उनसे निपटने के लिए नए रास्ते तलाशने की जरूरत है। अन्य बातों के साथ-साथ यह भी बहुत जरूरी हो गया है कि देश की राजनीति को मूल्यों और मुद्दों की पटरी पर वापस लाने के लिये पहल की जाए तथा देश में भारतपरस्त और गरीबपरस्त राजनीति को उभारने के लिए जनमानस तैयार किया जाए।
आजकल देश में जो हालात हैं, उसमें राजसत्ता और थैलीशाहों के बीच एक अपवित्र गठजोड़ साफ दिखता है। इस कारण आम आदमी की जिंदगी दिनोदिन मुश्किल होती जा रही है। विपक्षी दलों से यह अपेक्षा थी कि वे सरकार की जनविरोधी नीतियों का विरोध करते हुए उस पर अंकुश रखेंगी। लेकिन ऐसा हो नहीं रहा। सत्तापक्ष और विपक्ष दोनों अमीर परस्त और विदेश परस्त नीतियों को बढ़ावा देने में लगे हैं। ऐसे में देश की संपूर्ण सज्जन शक्ति के लिए जरूरी हो गया है कि वह आम आदमी के हक की लड़ाई लड़ने के लिए आगे आए।
इस लड़ाई का वैचारिक आधार तय करने की दृष्टि से यह प्रारूप सभी के विचारार्थ प्रस्तुत हैं। इनके परिमार्जन तथा परिवर्धन में आप सभी सहभागी हों ऐसी विनती है। आप अधिकाधिक लोगों तक इन्हें पहुंचाने में सहायता करेंगे, ऐसा आग्रह भी है। संवाद की यह प्रक्रिया विजयदशमी (28 सितंबर 2009) से मकर संक्रांति (14 जनवरी 2010) तक चलेगी। प्रक्रिया पूर्ण होने के पश्चात मनीषी दीनदयाल उपाध्याय जी की पुण्यतिथि (11 फरवरी 2010) को संशोधित घोषणा पत्र जारी किया जायेगा।
कृपया अपने सुझाव मुझे इस ईमेल पर भेजें : draftmanifesto@gmail.com आप मुझे निम्न पते पर पत्र भेज कर भी सुझाव दे सकते हैं:
535, द्वितीय तल, डबल स्टोरी एरिया, न्यू राजेन्दर नगर, नई दिल्ली-110060
आप सभी से इस प्रक्रिया में सहभागी होने की विनम्र विनती के साथ।
- के एऩ गोविन्दाचार्य
A
NATIONALIST MANIFESTO
(a preliminary draft)
From:
The Political Office of,
Shri K.N.Govindacharya, Patron, Rasthtrvadi Morcha
Our Culture & Heritage:
Bharat is one of the only two civilizations of the world that have a continuous and uninterrupted history of several millenniums. The other is
Bharat is blessed with natural abundance that is not found almost anywhere else in the world. Early twentieth century geographers of the colonial empire used to refer to every aspect of Bharat in superlative terms. This is the most hopeful fact about Bharat; unfortunately, we have tended to forget about this even fundamental truth. Bharat is blessed with an extraordinarily compact geography; three fifths of the Bhartiya land is cultivable, else where in the world regions where one fifth of the land can be cultivated are considered highly valuable, at least in terms of agriculture. Of the cultivable area of Bharat, more than two-fifths falls in Sindhu-Ganga plains. The vast plain, extending over 3,000 kilometres in length and 250 to 400 kilometres in width, is the largest expanse of fertile land in the world in the world. The plain is formed of the Himalayan alluvium brought by the Sindhu and the
Our cultural ideology has its roots in sprit of our ancient civilization. The embodiment of internal values being enshrined in the concept of universal peace and universal family “vasudheva kutumbakam” the value being derived from “lok samasta sukhina bahanvantu”. This cultural heritage being central to all religions and languages is a civilisation identity and constitutes the cultural nationalism of Bharat propagated by Swami Vivekananda, Dayanand Saraswati and Sri Aurobindo, being the core of the Hindutva ideology. Hindutva, more meaningful as “Hinduism” or “Hinduness” as way of life and not confined to the blocks of religion alone, sustains the thought of cultural aspect of being inclusive and that of inclusiveness, holding sacred all forms of belied and worship. The contours of “Hinduness”being;.respect to all modes of worship, there is one and the same consciousness in all animate and inanimate beings, there is nothing like inferior or superior being therefore egalitarianism is Hinduism. Man is not a conqueror of nature but a part of nature and therefore, an eco-friendly economy is what Hindutva proposes. Because of the special quality of motherhood, women have a special respect in the public welfare society. The purpose of life does not end in eating, making merry and dying, but transcends that and finally, there is the nonmaterial value of pursuing a goal, even if it may be endless.
Even after having obtained independence from the imperial rule, the nation has yet to come to terms of its fullest potential with inspiration from our this rich cultural heritage and civilisation, our belief system, our principles and our “Hindu” religion. And time now has come to impregnate the nationalist thought with more rigor for immense possibilities, without failing to undertake a concerted effort, involving all our resources and all our people capital to quickly restore Bharat to her rightful glory. Such coming together of our people of Bharat has necessarily to take place through a reassertion of the essential aspect of our ancient cultural, economical, political and religious consciousness. Any movement for national re-awakening shall have to build on these pillars of aspects and symbols and the task therefore is thrust upon us to set the direction and awaken the spirit with determination and the set the nation on the move.
Need for a Nationalist renaissance:
Post six decades of independence, we have either lost or are still searching for own national identity. Despite our imperishable heritage we continue to raise ourselves to be measured by prosperity or less malaise of the developed world. We continue to raise ourselves from a third world definition to a second world, as achievement and that is where we have kept our focus on with competing not with the world but inwardly developing a mind set of competing with ourselves. All these years. We conveniently forgot that when these inhabitants of developed leagues were yet to come to terms of community living and even collective living as colonies, Bharat already had multi-tier governance existing complete with revenue, taxation and civic laws systems and it was this intellectual prosperity and wealth which attracted both saints and sinners to explore the marvel of a nation called Bharat. Sadly but true after all these decades we are yet to regain the conformity of a developed country and although the nation has come to imbibe the perception of having started a journey to a possibility of upheaval, the ambiguity is surpassed by the existing absence of a pride in our cultural and moral sovereignty. The tone of our nationalistic temperament is at its all time low. We pride ourselves as the largest democratic nations of the world, yet we find this without meritocracy. Rampant corruption, dishonesty has replaced the essence of what could have been achieved by democracy and its pillars. Policies naturally flowing out of these systems laced with this malaise resultantly produce development which starts to limp from its birth and continue to be run forever as orphans between all of them without any accountability for national interests. The political parties considered to be the guardians of democracy have all these decades mastered this art of not owing responsibility and shifting of accountability with perpetual ease. The democratic contest every five years is not on ideology of who has the moral fibre of keeping the nation first but on finding audience of who could possibly deceit the nation, first with these mastered tricks.
This including the longest tenure of Congress, and now United Progressive Alliance (UPA ) or Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) and its allies, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) who on every possible opportunity decided to have turns and compete with its best ability to let go of the principles of polity, probity of serving the masses, people at large to choose over their own agenda’s of serving the parties interest first, its members and privileged commune the next and leftovers for the people who repose their faith each time through the enshrined democratic process to make believe the unsurpassed end to their miseries, depriving further the singular right of living served constantly on pseudo plank of governance, as absolute last.
The nation yet remains counted as among the backward countries with another few decades of motion needed to arrive with the world. Even despite the principled stand of leading the nation, we stand at the dawn of new millennium with upwards of 260 million people still not having sufficient income to access the consumption basket remaining below poverty estimates. Our leading developing states being compared with
The Constitutional right of “state to protect those, who can not protect themselves” as a simplistic way to read and lay allegiance to the pre-amble of the Constitution, the state and its pillars of democracy, the legislature and executive (more) and judiciary (fortunately less) have instead been forced to co-opt the political constitution of their respective parties and blind folded bequeathing to now the globalisation tirade of capitalist formations of USA’s and Europe’s of the world, in the garb of WTO negotiations or World Bank Agenda politics of governance. Both, the present UPA regime and erstwhile NDA regime, as BJP have exploited the nation, its resources, people and their right of sustenance with impunity by there pro-capitalist, pro – WTO approach. Whether it would be the UPA regime acquiring vast tracts of fertile multi-crop agrarian land demonstrating the capitalist model of increased consumption by substituting land reforms and needed protection over larger national interest of agriculture contribution as percentage of GDP over formation of Industrial zones, SEZ, FTZ polices to attract FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) and yet taking pride of service contribution replacing the agriculture input as minor partner in still agriculture dependent economy of the country, Or the NDA regime coming out with plastered white washed version of one urban wall and announcing the entire home, the country to be “shining” and remaining that way; and further to secure this as a impressive electoral achievement to “rule” once again. This when close to 175,000 farmers committed suicide in the country? The only achievement of these political parties post there turns of being monarchs has seen the country now standing divided between the have’s and the have nots, as being generally proscribed in their governance documents, as India and Bharat.
The nation, its nationalism, serving not more than decked conversations of capitalist’s monarchies in their Pro-Bharat documents. We had been forewarned of these dangers several decades ago by Guru Shri. Rabindra Nath Tagore, thus, “ We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous west behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness and overwhelmed by the speed. We choose to agree that this chariot drive was progress, and the progress was civilization. If we ever ventured to ask “progress” towards what, and progress for whom”, it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously backward to entertain such ideas about the absoluteness of progress. Of late, a voice has come to us to take count not only of the scientific perfection of the chariot but of the depth of the “ditches” lying in its path”. Yet these ditches despite the direction are not seen.
This has been so true for state monarchs as well, the CPI, CPI (M) who considered the champions of the proletariat, peasants, marginalised farmers and labours dumped them with Engel’s and Marx favouring disgraced organizations in there own countries and returning the electorate favour as Nadigram and Singur. This continued with backwards mobilisation of class displacement as a cause over three decades with singular objective of ruling the masses and creating an egalitarian regime by ‘investing” people state’s interest in 4,000 crores of dubious innumerous projects, including several injunctions of judiciary over mass flouting of environmental blunders and cult formation by installing statue’s and yet taking pride of “Bhaujan hitaye, Bahujan sukhaiye” as Bahujan Samaj Party.
This unabated over democratic principles and issues of genuine governance across the length and breadth of the country with various political formations as faded remembrance to convenient nationalism with immuned flexibility, at best utmost convenience. The nation seems to be long forgotten and attempts of sycophancy to lay open the siege of this nation even to a foreigner as continuation of surrogate dynastic polices as proven itself the decay which has come to roost our struggle to achieve democracy. Polity which was a means for voluntary service to the nation and having produced sterling leadership of this nation which has this developed world taking inspiration and yet not forcing this as any convoluted ideology of any “ism” has a new yardstick of qualification to participate. The more corrupt and more criminal injunctions with severity the better chances of winnability and allocation of governance to satiate this greed of power. Not surprising even in the last concluded democratic participation, each political formation, every political formation succumbed by choice to not to loose the allure of power by offering them as candidates to the electorate, increasing them by a collective 17.2% in comparison to last in 2004. The choice of electorate to choose their representative not on the basis of this “voluntary” nationalistic service but to choose the lesser of them corrupt over others, coming further closer to at best but a sham, which otherwise was a right for genuine constitutional representation.
It is proven now that these political parties can not be trusted to rejuvenate the nationalist pride and a movement of nation first, needs to be brought to the fore within the masses. The ideologies of these parties have left nothing but to peril the glory achieved of the nation at expense of common man. This Americanism, WTO’ism now needs to be replaced by core nationalism with absolute focus on Pro-Bharat, Pro-Poor ideology of nation first and people first movement. This needs all the sanghthan’s, samuh’s, parties who are working with semi-political or political intervention to come forward forging a much needed, stronger alliance of Nationalist forces which could have the invincible power to dispose these pro western powers, putting in place a more stronger alternative politico policies of governance by putting the common man and his ecology in the core of this set up. This top down pyramid which forces the common person, the last man on the socio economic ladder to constantly look up within this democratic system to vehemently oppose this and allow him to question and at best to reverse this by turning this upside down by active dialogue, concurrence, and participation in this democratic process of activism.
Our agenda for nationalist governance: Pro-Bharat, Pro-Poor Ideology
Pro-Bharat: Our heritage, culture, geographical, temperament and ecology are different and this can not be adopted on the basis of what’s good for other would be good for us methodology. Nation breeds and sustains on its own core and accordingly this needs to be understood to approach with collective faith in our own temperament. If we progress on follies of others we would not make a step difference on where we as a nation would like to progress today. The consciousness imbibed in our philosophy of sanatan dharma and complete faith in its tenants helped us to blow away the shackles of boundness making us as an independent nation. This has inspired and been subscribed since countless ages by great nationalist, as early by Chatrapati Shivaji, Swami Vivekananda to Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Sri Aurobindo, Mahamana, Kesavram Baliram Hedgawar to others. We have blind folded in our approach have looked down upon these tenants which we need to revisit now, reawaken to its fullest form to form the collective nationalism and form our Pro-Bharat ideology. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “by political independence, I do not mean an imitation to the British house of commons, or the soviet rule of
This nationalism would be collectively referred to the collective expressions of social and political thought, based on native spiritual and cultural traditions of Bharat. Further the native temperament and its ecology needs to built up around to understand the inclusiveness of nationalism. Affording to act global but ignoring the local terrain temperament is and would further be disastrous to sustenance of nation hood. A Pro-Bharat thought would include factors as would be necessarily to have vision for nationalistic pursuits, understanding of these pursuits, moving them beyond isolation, improvise and develop a eco-system of these be able to collectively execute of these in form of actions within the society. This needs to be understood and seen differently not by us by others as well.
A Pro-Bharat approach hence thus would be derived from the cultural GDP and not from an economical GDP perspective as seen and measured globally. These actions should not be seen as parts standing on themselves alone but as sum of parts as a whole for progressive national upheaval. A delicate balance needs to be maintained between socio-economical and cultural factors to achieve a state of constant development which further would restrain any skewed development. This eco-system would out rightly reject what does not adapt to itself and similarly would absorb what remains beneficial under this model. This system dependent on our ancient variables of the “Panch J” philosophy of Jan, Jal, Jungle, Jameen, Janwar, synchronising this with philosophies of what’s good for this eco-system and what allows it to regain its intricate balance would allow the Pro-Bharat actions to emerge. In Bharat’s context this would mean, has the soil retained its richness with fertility, has the water level risen on its own, have we created self sustaining model of agrarian development, industries which compliment these developments than take away what already or have we demonstrated the regard for natural resources for its usability and not exploited them fully as examples. Without these, it would best create an illusion of our pedigree driven on compromises forever.
All the existing parties are at the cusp of this interplay and have adopted one or combination or worst all of these factors to extend with glaring insensitivity to core of its beneficiary, the common man in picture. These policies have a detailed aspect to open up the boundaries to exploiting international commune and their cronies as MNC’s and in form of added investment avenues for liberalization of economy at cost of this eco-system which essentially should be driven more adding to strength to these factors. Communism or Capitalism should ideally make way for Swadesi and De-centralization of these policies remaining at the centre. The potent nationalistic force needs to be liberalized; the inclusive development needs to be liberalized prior euphuism’s are used to bail out economies of others.
Where as the global developed economies thrive on the concept of materialism and its immediate pre-occupation the level of consumption with over all focus on looking at just well being of an individual, stimulating class antagonism, socialistic disorders and greed to acquire more; the Pro-Bharat approach would to create a harmonious society by building, reshaping the institutions of these thought process. Any disturbance to these factors would lead to anarchy as being witnessed today and creating a gap which would be too large to fill by any substitute other than nation first thought, progressively. In order to conclusively attain this nationalistic temperament other then the five variables, education, its reforms, perseverance of Bhartiya languages, restoration of national rivers to its purity, protection and advancement of cultural centre of traditions, protection of religious centres and indigenous trade and craft needs to be cared for and developed as well. National GDP would hence not be a true measure of these activities and does not cover a holistic approach for the well being of a society. The country might have a stronger GDP connotation but yet could be facing issues in governance, poverty & appalling sustenance conditions, such as present Bharat so a true benchmark could be Gross Prosperity Index or Happiness Index to cover all sections of the society regardless of the commercial contribution attached to them and this would then truly reflect the state of affairs of the nation and its people. This would assist to measure the impact of policies, polity, probity and programmes for the nation, whether or not are achieving the desired objectives or not.
The constitution of the country needs to be amended as well to ensure that no person of foreign origin is able to supersede the arrangement of getting the highest constitutional offices of the President, Prime Minister and Office of the armed forces. Bharat despite the show up of economical statistics and replacement of these factors in factor of growth rate of development yet remains mainly an agrarian economy. The sustenance of majority of the population even till today is without doubt agriculture and steps needs to be taken to ensure there is no degradation of multiple crop or single crop lands for development. The erstwhile tirade of GATT and now WTO to restructure economy on prescription based upon matured economies should not allow the markets to be opened up for our nation’s growing economy in forms of dole’s of subsidies.
We were a highly developed agriculture nation and 200 years of tyranny of imperial rule allowed us to ignore the might we have in our land and soil to achieve this without any economical intervention of these developed forces. We need to focus on doubling the output of our agriculture produce with indigenous methods of farming, traditionally being practiced. Its been seen that in few pockets we have been able to come closer to achieve this goal however this can not be said true for some regions having seen unabated suicides of farmers. This differentiation in farming, organic dependent at most needs to be addressed and sufficient protectionism methods yet need to be reinforced to see that we do not again become dependent for our agriculture produce. Some balance needs to be achieved for farmers and farming community as a whole and needs subjective re-addressal of their grievances to achieve this objective. Coming in with their tools of imperialistic mechanisations; consumptions and demand, propensity to higher markets with accelerated growth rate of investments on capital but as a nation we need to know that they “need us” to expand their commercial interest and we have the right to dictate what we think would be an appropriate approach to harness this with string negotiations without comprising on our economical and national sovereignty. A Pro-Bharat approach could even see us survive this, even if we choose to walk out from this global trade organizations and yet protect, sustain and develop further on basis of our principles of protectionism of our national interest always remembering, they ‘also’ need us.
To continue to talk about Pro-Bharat ideology we also need to expand the scale of our de-centralized industry clusters. The overall economic holistic development could only be achieved when its ensured that no pocket of industrious activity, specially small scale in nature are left behind in participating in this growth momentum. Swadesi model of development with inclusive focus on these sectors would attain and also repose confidence in our nationist abilities to compete with the best industrious zones in the world. There has been an attempt even to let go of this safeguard on pretext of complete transformation needed for small scale sectors by offering them subsidies in form of trash loans, infrastructural facilities, inviting more of debt in already struggling livelihood of these resources where no attempt is made to ensure the produce finds the right set of consumption centres through its marketability.
Dependence on safeguard mechanisms through trade embargo’s and addition of high duty rates have done negligible to dilute its impact since owing to the volumes being brought in from cheaper sources of manufacturing the resultant impact of protectionism also wades away. The marginalized cluster producer with no match for the level of investments in these efforts further recedes to livelihood deprivation. As has been recently seen for efficient energy growth the entire economy of the country together with its national sovereignty left in lien with capitalist over nuclear energy agreement. We need to be promoting alternative resources of energy also bearing in mind the consideration for water restoration and its purity preservation. Factually, when the country gained independence it was expected to remain, behave and act rightfully humble towards the ecology with a nationalist feeling. Policies which have reaped dividends over all these countless years, the philosophy and the rules prevailing in the society with a focussed need to maintain and at best further these with a will to attain as per the ecological temperament of the country. This thought and its execution anomaly has constantly crept into the normal lives is a visible sign of departure from our national moorings. The constitution was supposed to be a document on these factors yet this also seemed to have failed to provide the necessary direction, even being directive in nature.
The constitution itself has been amended so many times that one really wonders whether a new constituent assembly needs to be called to steer the nationalist expectations as was perhaps perceived right from its original inception. Laying bare the an old act of 1935 as a basic framework of governance has proven itself wrong and continues to do it even today, so making amends is the call of our times, not from a past perspective but for our present and charting the course of nation, its people for future direction. The vision of “poorn swarajya is what needs to be replaced despite we being independent in actions, yet bounded in our thoughts to invigorate our national spirit. Where unless the bottom most person of the societal hierarchy is revitalized, the holistic development and dream of an egalitarian society and a nationalist society in turn would continue to meet each other at crossroads. This could be achieved by, in summary, by having:
- Consistent focus at grass root level to seek and develop agriculture inputs as according to the need, temperament and sustenance of ecology for the people and not on a central policy basis of subsidies and their relative interdependent plans. We still are an agrarian economy, to remember.
- Land Improvement and support where the class, caste and displacement of people are ill effected and major development projects co-exist supplementing efforts of each other with each having its sphere of influence then forcing a option of for “either of the systems”
- Focus on integrated educational development which assures the right of employment then right of knowledge and its use in the developing world
- GDP measurement to include ancillary services which do not connote a commercial value yet still are a national component e.g. the labour barter which could be seen every season across the agrarian community of farmers pooling and taking turns to till fields for saving the spend on outsourced labour and retaining their cultural bonhomie, the very backbone of the system or perhaps challenge the GDP factor itself to define a new (GPF) Gross Prosperity Factor.
- Developing comprehensive agenda towards maintaining the intricate balance of the fragile eco-system of people and their livelihood resources including water & irrigation, land & forests, cattle & livestock and indigenous cultural knowledge heritage
- Approach to seek active involvement and virtual democratic participation in governance and administration. Reforms should not be skewed as a secondary choice for an already defunct system, as add on. If it needs a complete transformation, the will should be able to support these actions with sole aim of efficient governance as its objective
A nationalistic temperament would without doubt lead us to nationalistic actions and with nationalistic intellect and that’s what the need of our moment would remain to be.
Having mentioned, no Pro-Bharat ideology could be complete unless the area partitioned at the cusp of abject “transfer of power” in 1947 is brought back into its rightful fold of completing the national formation. “Akhand Bharat” is a true desire and is a necessary requirement to wipe out the colonial expression. We have a background of same traditions, history and culture and have same lineage of parenthood as a nation and by merely drawing lines over the land would not mean independent nations with different philosophies, which were nothing but sinister designs of forced separation through communal hatred ebbed against each other. It would be forgone conclusion and playing yet in the hands of imperial colonies to let go of any opportunity which restricts the complete geographical unity of our motherland. We need to make amends for our predecessor’s mistake and ensure that we now realize the dream of a united, strong, powerful, and yet resilient – “Akhand Bharat”
Pro-Poor: When we refer to our Pro-Poor ideology the first aspect which strikes our thoughts is to collectively seek favourable responses from our policies of governance to ensure that the bottom most person in the social hierarchy and his basic needs of rightful living, food, water, shelter, medicine, education and livelihood for being met at the first instance itself. The system needs could afford to go conservative; perhaps for a while as progressively it moves up the ladder however the course correction needs to be respectful at its origin itself. We are aware today that unfortunately, we continue to follow the “trickle down theory” of governance, where only when it rains heavily, the top most gets drenched first in the shower of benefits with the last person obligated to get rightful few drops for sustenance and rest for him to secure all by himself. The pro-capitalist and new school of thought as socio-capitalist political formations are the one’s who decide on every aspect of this shower as well. How much of it, when, where and who gets the right of it in. Unfortunately, naming one group of association or political alliance for this misgiving would leave the others to achieve there liberty but it remains quite true and sadly, that each one of them has participated in this uncouth dancing ring of nominations of richness with impunity. It’s a hard known fact that rules of engagement of democratic participation itself have been heavily muddled with candidates having criminal track records, supported either fully or partially by stashed black money and economical offences perpetrated on state itself, which now they lay their claim to rule.
These segment of people are so deeply entrenched in this system that from a minority few immediately after independence who used to work underground for fear of social denouncement are now freely as majority, even with pride in few cases are openly supporting this process with nefarious motive of extending their ambitions of insatiate desire of greed. It is a known fact that Bharat leads the list of nations on illegal money stashed away in tax heavens and Swiss Banks. Dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians, civil servants and officers, film artistes, illegal sex trade operators, to name just a few, have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts a sum of about $ 1500 billion, which have been misappropriated by them. This amount is about 13 times larger than the country's foreign debt. With this amount 250 Mn poor people can get Rs 1, 00,000 each.
This huge amount has been appropriated from there own people on pretence of effective rule of governance by exploiting and betraying them. If this huge amount of black money and property comes back to
To speak of Pro-Poor pursuits it certainly is most important to bear in mind, first and foremost task of equipping them with their constitutional right of “basic fundamentals” and adding further their “equal” right of non poverty. Presently, the statistics of poverty are more conspicuous by there absence, an expression, which sadly is even short of covering this statement. What we have instead is the Gross domestic Consumption, Investment index of statistic, which as apparent as they would are skewed more towards encouraging this divide to widen at with capitalist fervour. Sadly, both the government and the ‘their’ people who vehemently avoid looking at the former are contented with Share Price sensex, attracting FDI’s in various fields and production and consumption factor of the country, as latter. It bitterly, as mentioned above hide more than it reveals yet everyone seems to be calling this as score card of relative success at expense of the common man, for whom this foundation of progress is being laid. This corrobates its match with celebrations by the government of “India" announcing to have arrived when the annual Forbes declares the number of its billionaires from the country, gracing its list, pushing more an more “with” same number of decimals of this wealth replacing the actual number of people “with” it who are constantly being pushed down into abject poverty yet covering the same ground of existence of this country.
The difference between the per capita income of the wealthiest citizen of the country and the lowest on the social ladder is pitiable with almost 90 times its size of earnings. This entire constitutional machinery, including parties, both ruling and opposition have become so hard necked in their pursuit of serving their “true” masters with contemptuous wealth-ism that the appalling condition of poverty are simply ignored or at best not even acknowledged being present, to deprive the only sustenance of their voice being heard at above. This makes them continue to work against the dignified right of their living versus what essentially should have been made “for” them. This when the central planned allocation for anti-poverty programmes have seen a 15 fold increase in last 15 years from 7,500 Crs in 1993-94 to well over 120,000 Crs in 2008-09, this in addition to 70,000 Crs of farmer loan waivers, simply having no inter relation between outlay and outcomes. The situation gets accentuated more when we look at the sheer statistics of this greatest deprivation of rightful fundamentals that people in rural habitations, the villages where people have seen there income rise from Rs. 8 per day to Rs.9 per day, the thin economic “plimsoll line” widening the gap of beneficiaries from BPL (Below the poverty line) to Non – BPL entity after all these outlays in last upwards of dozen years. This interplay of deprivation as perhaps was waiting for even this partition to lay claim on the frugal benefit of governance. Alarming as it is, states corresponding to their efforts have none to appease but themselves by shamefully printing reports and organizing poverty shows to International aid doling agencies and countries to get grants. Situation likes these, where in states like Jharkhand & Madhya Pradesh with significant tribal population, 99.8 percent of there families are not able to cover one basic meal in any given month of the year. This when the state antagonism being proponent of rampant “world-bankism, grant-ism, accumula-ism with single denominator of capitalism has produced not less than 25000 people who simply have any number between Rs 7 Mn to 10 Mn, as Vehicles, all their way from portico to their garage, as simply a spoilt choice over mode of commute.
Also, this system has offspring’s in form of people, almost upwards of 1 Mn who simply have matching accessories to compliment their attire with 0.25 Mn to anywhere upwards of 2.5 Mn each. The level of socio-economic balance is so heavily skewed that even employment opportunities are controlled by just 20 percent of the people over the remaining rest, whereas the remaining below just earning 3.6 percent of their remuneration over this spread wealth and richness, ironically. These situations, to analyse have not been a result of manifesting themselves in a day. These have had some signs of it even in pre- independence era however since the right of self rule as an independent nation was any ways deprived, it was hoped that these corrections would happen by themselves progressively with right earnest and policy changes geared towards betterment of and towards the people. Policies which were foreign would be dumped and nationalistic policies, allowing the expression of diverting these towards uplifting the masses over years of tyranny and eventually would disappear.
The seeds of hope were being carried to bear fruit of freedom, yet we just run out of expressions to condone where we find ourselves today. A lot of these expressions needs be made the foundation of this change to happen today with nationalism, patriotism and care of our people without expecting any favours in turns by these aggressors of capitalist formations. These anomalies are to be corrected, since without these we can not but dream of an egalitarian society and achieve its socio-ecological equilibrium.
To achieve the objective of a Pro-Poor system, which adopts and not discards the approach towards this balance, we foremost need to do away with the per capita formation pay anomaly brining it as close to be possible to be not more than 10 percent of it, between as high as the President of the nation, to the lowest citizen of the country. It would also be expected of nationalist forces, forming the “Nationalist Alliance” to agree on this approach by owing endorsements for all political parties and its representatives to have their remuneration adjusted to the lowest denominator of this system. To ensure collectively this just does not remains thematic at best, progressive steps would be needed to create sufficient employment opportunities for this spectrum to ensure the system self corrects and sustains on its core, running efficiently without misbalancing itself. To work towards a Pro-Poor nationalistic thought we would need to ensure that the basic tenants of rightful living and livelihood are duly protected. This would entail, everyone rightfully employed to his skill and all the people in the system have gainful right to food. Immense hunger, starvation deaths and under nourishment especially amongst the children due to non availability of rightful means to sustainable livelihood have created this wide imbalance where more than 260 Mn people go hungry everyday or having no course of even at best assuming the next meal availability. This abject condition to not been able to protect their families have had the most impact on the families of bread earners with children facing the most ghastly of the brunt in early years, some not even crossing the age of early childhood as a result. Some 46% of the nation’s children relate to these facts and its immensely disturbing when development is being sponsored and proponents of it are seen singing paeans of globalized development. Gross malnutrition even reported now and children being sold of for want of money or at worst, for just few kilograms of rice or wheat is not something this illustrious nation feels proud off and should not as well.
To ensure eradication of poverty and its syndrome these “enforced” rights if needed should also cover the right to shelter, medicine, and education without any difference to their class, caste or creed. A composite nutritious meal is also right of every citizen and it should be addressed. In every meal, half litres of milk, half kilogram of wheat / rice, half kilogram of fruits and vegetables completing it. To ensure the right to good health and availability of quality health facilities we need to ensure that access to these rights are not complicated and the outreach is effectively planned. Around 27% of our population yet does not have approach to these facilities either being not present or ill staffed equally from resources or infrastructural reasons. Not having any medical access incase of exigencies is the depriving the basic right to life and this would have to be equally implemented in conjunction with others as utmost priority.
We should ensure that these instances are addressed with policies favouring them as “fundamental rights” as part of constitution and further see to it that stand executed as well to its fullest word. Necessary reforms would need to be carried out if the policies are found (which they are amongst a lot) wanting in these respects or want of infrastructural lacunas. The entire might of nation needs then to be put behind to attain the objective of ensuring these basic fundamentals are foremost addressed over others as priorities and then only in our truest sense we would be able to achieve a state of equilibrium amongst ourselves, only then we can collectively call ourselves as following the ideology of the Pro-Poor Nation. To collectively now assimilate this Pro-Bharat, Pro-Poor ideology and find scientific deployment of these to develop our temperament for our above Nationalistic pursuits we need to definite the impact of these on our policies across various sectors. This being tenants of our policies of governance, we need to ensure as forbearer of “Nationalistic Alliance”, our agreement on the following;
Strengthen our Constitution to strengthen our Democracy and its institutions:
The background of our constitution is the Government of India Act -1935 which was based on the series of drafts promulgated in promoting the vested interests of the Imperial government to appease the diehards, indirect elections to the lower most house and continue to deny the implied freedom assured to Bharat. It was under the shadow of this act the constituent assembly was formed in 1948. The constitution resultantly continues to assimilate the Imperialist tendencies of governance and further continues to fail in capturing the rightful spirit of the nationalistic soul, in developing an eco centric self sustainable model of development, which was expected from the Constitution, since its inception according to our own national temperament even when it was fully adopted later in 1950. This has resulted in effecting its pillars with Legislature practice of governance directly adopted from this model, Executive infrastructure of burgeoning bureaucracy which if all to facilitate has seen itself being defined more as “red tape” bottleneck than custodian of policy implementation and Judiciary, which to an extent is still holding the national rich tapestry, is left guarding these all with limited capability since the powers to be accorded have their own inherent limitations.
The constitution which imbibing the nationalistic vision was supposed to tilt the pyramid and empower the lowest social hierarchy having powers to impress on policies remains virtually denied. This arrangement even till present exists and thus is at best symbolic of the powers remaining in the hands of people who have the adequate imperialistic traits than being a factual document of aspirations, cultural identity, nationalistic vision, complete democratic and political autonomy, charter of rights and constitutional safeguards for these rights, reformative and progressive national strategies and implied power of governance on the democratic framework and its pillars for whom it has been created – the people of the nation. To strengthen, though needs further detailing and elaboration, it is proposed that;
· Achieve a paradigm shift from homocentric to eco-centric development
· The constitution needs to brought closer to the aspirations to the people of the nation, other than what it provides as charters and assimilated according to the needs and ecological temperament, reflecting our cultural, traditional and national heritage
· Formation of new constituent assembly to address these needs with sole objective of applying rigor to adopt what is best suited as adding the efforts for national upheaval for present but certainly for Bharat’s future and its generations
· Adopting what assists the governance to promote inclusion of societal formations aiding egalitarianism and judged not on the basis of class, caste, gender, linguistic and regional disparities and scrapping which at best have remained as a mere act on constitutional safeguards
· Directive principles of state policies to be reviewed and contingent on meeting the nationalistic temperament be adopted as governing acts for assimilation further with powers to executive and judiciary for its implementation
· Special status policies and mechanisms for states to be abolished either or based on linguistic or religious background, completely brought under one constitutional norm of sovereignty. This would include critical review for State of Jammu & Kashmir
· Abolishment of special rights and privileges on the basis of linguistic, religious or regional disparities and all to be brought under a Uniform Civil Code to ensure the basics tenants of constitutional safeguards are not set to be discriminated against or in favour of any group of people. All remain equal by the constitution, with no constitutional disparity either by choice of government or by its own default
· Cumbersome and complicated Executive levels borrowed from the erstwhile imperial’s would be replaced by civil services with focus on grass root development and policy formulations with answerable to the District level authorities with partial representation of the people from those districts and not to central government apparatus as present. These all to be reviewed critically under the new constituent assembly
· Judicial process and safeguards of speedy justice with easy access to law and justice would be incorporated and suitable amends or scrapping of outdated hundred year laws would be undertaken to ensure the access of justice is not denied
· The judicial custodianship would again be measured and be made further responsive to the new constitutional tenants to secure its implied sovereignty working for the people of the country
· Setting up “gram nayayalas” pending since decades to be institutionalized
· Legislature reforms to include more representation from lowest governance hierarchy into Rajya Sabha by also including recommendations from not only State legislative members but more than 30% of this for each candidate coming from District / Block members of the panchayat and suitable changes incorporated under the aegis of new constituent assembly
· Strengthen Election Commission by instituting reforms for radical changes in conduct of elections to include review of mode of conducting elections – voting, registration of voters, state funding of elections, setting up of national code on participating in electoral process by smaller parties which proliferate for sole objective of earning a share in power as opportunities electoral brokers and frequent electioneering being called incase of no confidence being brought out for the incumbent government, either at central or state level
· NOTA (Non of the above) option to be made available to the electorate
· Ensure checks to avoid participation of candidates with criminal, social crimes antecedents, records and further strict cap on election spending with declaration of funds with both pre and post audit of candidates and parties accounts to maintain source of funds, transparency, including political & corporate donations
· First past the post system and 51/49 democracy system to be critically reviewed and suitable reforms included. Majority government to partner with minority parties incase of having simply not obtained a clear verdict in electorate process by just being, marginally ahead and “no confidence” motion being brought by opposition to identify an all party interim government until the completion of full term of Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha for non dissolution of assembly, saving unwarranted public expenditure
· “Right to recall” representative extended beyond the contours of grass root governance mechanisms to include all apparatus of democracy, including Legislative, Executive and Judiciary with stricture and measures as appropriated by the new constituent assembly and suitable amendments to be incorporated in prevailing People Representation Act with powers accorded to the Election Commission for its rightful implementation
· Amendments to ensure the cultural and traditional tenants of our nation, based on our Hindu religion are implemented this to include, Protecting and formulating policies to enhance our glorious Bhartiya tradition to again reclaim the lost place in form of religious resurgence by active restoration of all temple’s including Ayodhya and places of religious interest to their rightful original status, complete ban on cow slaughter across the country, development of ancient sites and its complete preservation and development, such as Shri Ram Setu, et al and withdrawing state control of all religious institutions and laws which effect their autonomous functioning
Strengthen our Decentralized Governance Democracy- the Panchayats:
With major population of the nation composed of rural population, it is imperative to design a system which dilutes their dependency on central or state government plans, policies and programmes. Our adopted constitution had a major departure from our philosophy of village driven governance which forced even Mahatma Gandhi to have rejected the initial recommendations which excluded it from the Constitution. Though the 73rd amendment paved its initial arrival we continue to regard this system as intrinsic to our national polity than otherwise. The very purpose of having a decentralized governance system was to empower the villages to plan, design, implement and chair developmental polices which would allow them to be independent of the central policy making, in turn assisting to speed up the efforts for consolidating the villages, its economy to ripen up at immediate grass roots to further strengthen the efforts whilst it moves up the state or central governance system. Yet, despite the rhetoric and scant regard for even the Mahatma, the policies have been kept central to the seat of power, exercising the impact from the top to ensure the system could not raise itself up to the standards of merit remaining always if never dependent on the might of the formations at the top of pyramid as rulers. In no other country in the world, the epitome of self governance in form of this empowerment or as its philosophy is available as an example and this has been thematically addressed as one of the nations most amazing development yet, remains deactivated. Panchayats have been a seat of collective and community admiration.
The respect of for the seat of five eminent people, chosen by the villagers themselves is not a new phenomenon and comparative governance models could even be traced in Kautilya’s Arthshastra where the kingdom powers used to flow from these villages assisting the king to perform his “Raj Dharma” effectively. What we have made is just a bastion of electorate contest, dependent on the mercy of the state legislative corrupting even this societal governance of people by themselves to an abysmal level which creeks of an environment which does little, offers little to the villages in the garb of power for their own governance. This three tier system needs to be rejuvenated in its right earnest with focussed zeal over any other to ensure the grass root development is strong to sustain on its own comprising a holistic model of village centric model of development.
A change in mindset needs to be addressed first to ensure the villages do not feel dwarfed to attempt initiatives in comparison to the country policies. Its is due to this mind set of self propagation that villages have come to think of themselves of limiting their efforts since the national policies despite the entire central might behind them have not been able to find solutions, what could they possibly achieve on their own by themselves. The issue here is not about the size of this governance but only if the villages could get to know the inefficiencies of governance, corruption and its follies and the lack of determination to make reach the outcomes, would they realize that their effort of single village, sub-joined by effort of others later would then realize them the power which the centre only speaks off but never actually has with them to deploy. This inefficient and corrupt outlay has been rightly accepted by none other than the highest statesman Sw. Rajiv Gandhi, of 15 paisa reaching the villages as outcome of every Rupee planned by the government. To ensure this system achieves the desired objective, certain reforms, new additions in approach and deployment of the constitutional might be enforced to gain its benefits. Though needs further detailing and elaboration, it is proposed that;
· Panchayats are given full autonomy in its functioning, including initiative to empower them with planning policies and programmes for aiding governance, rural administration and too an extent law & order and justice for petty crimes
· Panchayats are dependent on the states and its legislative mechanisms hence it is proposed that state legislative members and local legislative members would have no association in governing or directing or intervening, other than in exceptional basis, covered under the Panchayat Raj Act to assist for its complete functioning
· Panchayati Raj members to be fully nominated as they are presently by the villagers themselves however no executive member either at block, district level gets to represent the panchayat more than 2 times of its fully served tenure again being restricted to the full term being of 2 years each. This would allow the members to keep in check the corrupt tendencies and hold over state / central budget grants to be misused also allowing alternative turns to people to attain experience in smaller democratic governance
· Though 33% reservation is allowed for Women, it should be made to ensure that no kith or kin or relative or extended family member, unless on exceptional basis be appointed as an executive member of the Panchayat. In case of this exception, the term to last only for a 1 year and the election would become due with no term extended to that representative or his family for 7 years to represent. This needs to be detailed and studied further to imply observations as a practice
· Legislative Council’s to be fully abolished to ensure no duplication of governance limits this democratic functions of panchayats
· Central planned outlays, to the tune of 7% on annual basis to made available directly to these panchayats for planning policies themselves more in tune with their local needs, ecology and environment than on generalist grant outlay basis
· This outlay to be further dependent not on the basis of average allocation per village basis but on the basis of density of its population also taking into considerations the specific topographic needs as would be needed to develop their model of cohesive development
· Right to recall would be mandatory either at the end of two term or before the term should the executive member is found wanting in genuine implementation of the schemes as outlined by the local governing body council. Awareness to this an extent to be covered in educating the villages and they being made known about their rights while the council is appointed
· District planning commission to be formed with representation of state members and eminent people but limited to not more than 1/3rd of these members, rest being appointed by the panchayats in that district with each representing a village panchayat, so as not to exceed 12 members in that commission
· District Magistrates would report to these District Planning Commissions on all central funded or panchayat funded government policies and programmes or any other such programmes planned for its development
· District Planning Commission to mandatory ensure each village has schools, health centres, small scale industrial training centres, Agriculture assistance centres, Handicraft, Handloom or local artisans help centres to concentrate development of their art & craft as well as Panchayati Governance self help centres to disseminate information about various government schemes as needed, further depending upon its respective population density
· Annual independent audits to be conducted and reports to be announced and made available through these panchyatai raj centres at any given point of time to rural people, self help groups or Non Governmental Organizations to maintain governance transparency
· Panchayat members to also be part of the nominations made to Rajya Sabha by the legislative members over a block of districts , as arrived to ensure collective participation and representations of their interests at the highest seat of democracy
Strengthen our Swadesi Economic Enterprises:
“Swadeshi is economic nationalism”, said Tilak, “Swadesism at its highest is a deep, passionate, fervent, all embracing love of the motherland and that this love seeks to show itself, not in one sphere of activity only, but in all; it invades the whole man and it will not rest until it has raised the whole man” These thoughts have been the core ideologies centred around our struggle of independence where anything which had a imperial signage be it dependency on clothes, objects of general use imported at the cost of nationalistic exchequer were shun and the pride of fervour was to be worn on chest & sleeves of what ever produced nationally. Mahatma Gandhi believed as well that alienation and exploitation often happen when production and consumption are divorced from their social and cultural context, and this local enterprise is the only solution to avoid these problems. “When we serve our immediate neighbour before others, we serve humanity in turn”.
These were words inspiring the generations of Bhartiya for decades and still continue however this nationalistic feeling has been forcefully subdued to encourage colonial exploitation of different sought by opening up our economy without any caveats and protection in form of economic liberalization and globalization. The country acquiesced its economic will forcefully by political parties than to rather compete on its own, in its own terms with the adversary, welcomed on the plank of harnessing development for the nation, mocking the efforts of countless people who fought to gain independence from alien capitalist rule. With the impact of liberalization ushered in early 90’s the first impact was to be felt on nation’s rural economy. With upwards of 60% people living or dependent on the rural economy, this travesty laid bare the soul of economy for exploitation and continues even till today without offering any protection to marginalized farmers, artisans, cottage, handloom, handicraft and small scale industries, last specially meeting the needs of domestic requirements, emanating again out of the very same economy. Incessant calls for domestic industry and cluster protection was construed as being putting this trade juggernaut back into motion and arguments were put as the country would perhaps again reach itself in pre-independent era.
Nothing could have been more false than this however thematically nothing could have been agreed more as well. The national pride and taking recourse into something alien, exploitation of land, its water, resources, labour, agriculture inputs all to reap the bounties of country only to fill up their own capitalist chest and providing dividends for their own shareholders, globally. This as could be seen was no different even in the colonial era and this continued for close to 200 years to rob this country preciously its own identity. If Swadesi would mean end to this exploitation and protectionism to the indigenous industries and livelihood dependent economy, than that’s what for sure it is. Of lately the attitude of most of the educated people, the elite has become to haughty away dismissing of all things Bhartiya. An atmosphere evidently has thus been created that nationalistic products in all sectors of economy, including agriculture, industry and services, are inherently inferior and cost efficient and that protecting Swadesi enterprises in any way, in any of these sectors amounts to encouraging and perpetuating mediocrity and wastefulness. It would not be a matter of concern if the entire indigenous economic enterprise of the country gets dismantled, it shall, this elite would solely believe would be faster replaced by higher quality and efficient products and services provided by international economic enterprises, having more faith in these imperialist companies with nefarious agendas then the skills of our own people and their Swadesi enterprises.
Following a Swadesi ideology would not imply that everything which is alien is to be opposed. We have to be open to high-end technologies and supported products and learning with assimilation, an adoption which would be needed for the nation to provide equal development opportunities alongside nations, yet with limitations and wiser prudence of “few” and “not all”. This development needs to be attuned to our interests as nation and not follow a non-linear development which mutates with our sovereignty, heaps suffering on our people and exploits them with impunity. Today 2/3rd of the GDP is produced by family and community enterprise and agriculture; and about 9/10th of the working people of Bharat are employed in these enterprises. These enterprises, forming the industrial clusters are spread across the length and breadth of the country such as
The liberalization was assumed to bring these Swadesi enterprises on par with competing strength with the global market forces but they were the first to succumb since their own markets were opened up for competition by the government without any recourse. Level of protectionism is hence needed to ensure the indigenous industrial strength is not eroded. Though needs further detailing and elaboration, it is proposed that;
- National economy to be reconstructed on the basis of Swadesi ideology and all variables of the economy such as production, consumption, prices, taxes, revenue, industrialization and select opening up of this economy to be organized under Swadesi economy
- Decentralization policies to be formulated to ensure the rural habitations become self reliant in each respect with regard to employment, production, energy and consumption meeting minimum basic requirements
- Indigenous industrial enterprises to be promoted on priority within this economy so as to develop them as powerful enterprises of national resistance to MNC and TNC’s
- Policies to include mandatory client-usage linkages for large enterprises through appropriate reservation of specific areas of business with small and medium enterprises
- FDI not to be permitted in indigenous industries, insurance, retail trade, agrarian dependent industries, fertilizers, defence and vital infrastructural establishments
- Swadesi economy to safeguard national interest in WTO and other block of trade forums by clearly outlining its Swadesi agenda on
- Trade and Labour Standards
- Trade and Environment
- Trade and Competitive policy
- Trade and Investment
- Intellectual Property Rights and Patents
- Formulations of policies which efficiently manage and further ensure adequate return on national investments both from monetary and human resources perspective in Public & Private enterprises funded by the government
- Industrial clusters to be developed across the country, including every village, district depending upon the local skills and needs, comprising a network of both large & small enterprises so as not to have development being confined to Urban industrial centres only, and generating sufficient self-reliant employment opportunities
- All large Multi-National Corporations, Trans-national Corporations would not be allowed to tap into countries capital reserve and no funding would be made available for their investments either fully or partially by central government, National banks or National Financial Institutions to afford protectionism to national economic interest
- Existing Industrial clusters should be further developed and government policies to sustain favourable outcomes so as to serve as illustration to others
- SSI Industries to be developed into industrial clusters and a network to be created for self supporting, self dependent sustainable enterprise, with trading in procurement or supplies of raw material or finished products amongst themselves in these clusters and Centres of Swadesi excellence being created for product innovation
- Indigenous Wisdom Bank at District level to be created to promote, sustain and develop low cost, low capital businesses
- Policies to ensure Agrarian input is at parity with Consumer goods to avoid marker forces immoral ploy and Manufacturing Price and Sales Price are mentioned on the products to avoid sole profiteering
- Patent, Trade Marks and Intellectual Rights Commission to be strengthened to avoid copy of Indigenous Agrarian produce, Consumer Produce and Technologies related to these thereof
Strengthen our Agriculture, Land, and Water Resources:
Bharat’s economy is predominantly agrarian, ranking almost 2nd in farm output produce. Agriculture and farm produce industries and upwards of 60% of the people of the nation are linked directly or indirectly with this output. Constantly having faced neglect since several decades, first during colonial rule and thereafter through neglect post Green revolution which ushered in genetically modified hybrid seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, pesticides for crop protection and dependency on high end yield variety at expense of tradition based organic farming and indigenous methods has left the country to yet face the natural catastrophe of seasonal fluctuations and rampant situations leading to drought, as early as even this year in 2009. This when Agriculture still continues to be a major contributor to Bharat’s GDP and this again when we have the most fertile land in the world.
Bharat has been blessed in more ways than one. In countries like England which struggle for sufficient sunshine and get it only for two & half months, our land continues to enjoy sunshine throughout the year, with abundant rainfall to afford two crops in a year, something unimaginable in US or European countries. The most fertile Ganga basin of the world is in Bharat and this in addition to various river’s and there tributaries doting the country landscape in abundance to provide for Bharat to have developed as the leading agrarian economy of the world. Had we have realized the full potential of our agrarian economy or even do a course correction now in our agriculture strategies; we could certainly be the food bowl of the global world. Yet, this sector is plagued with inefficiencies, lack of determination to glean the most benefit for common good of the people and opening up of the Agriculture sector for MNC’s in form off Green Revolution which has taken its toll. Leading agriculture scientist and observers are surprised that Bharat with all its indigenous richness is not been able to reap the dividends of its agriculture input. Agrarian distress has led farmers to commit suicide, this with its all inclusive richness in states which at once in time were considered to be sufficiently self reliant in agriculture produce. States such as Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and now seeping in even to Haryana have led to believe the catastrophical impact our sheer neglect of our naturally endowed resources and further exploited playing in hands of liberalized economies at expense of our national survival.
Resultantly our agriculture per unit of productivity is much lower than other major crop producing countries. Replacement of traditional crops such as Wheat, Maize, Rice and other staples et al which for Bharat were supposed to be the primary producer has been replaced with cash crops and HYV (High Yield Variety) crops which have further ruined the soil fertility with gross contempt by forcing to have more dependency on pesticides, more water than need – further ruining the water table, chemicals brining in more toxic waste in the end products itself than anticipated. The temptation of greed matched with neglect, contempt and ignorance for small marginalized farmers to ape the west and bounties of rich farmers, have led the farmers into a vicious cycle of debt, barren land, departure from traditional farming techniques and now virtually non existent to diminishing land holdings due to monetary pressure and selling of land for commercial purposes to unsuccessfully attempt to climb out of it. It comes across as a pity that more than 175,000 farmers have committed suicide since last almost a decade and still continue. Ironically, this start matches with the ushering of liberalization at the onset of this very decade in discussion and unfortunately all the political formations, be it in state or centre has contributed to this state of affairs. Towing the global trade diktats we have opened up ourselves and our agrarian economy to this an extent that from net exporter of these commodities we have landed up to the net Importer of them and yet have not taking sufficient steps to ensure the crisis in our agriculture sectors are addressed.
The major causes of this agrarian crisis are lack of support from the governments in power by contributing less and less in each plan year on agriculture and focus on other service based industries, unfinished agenda in land reforms, quantity and quality of water, ignorant adoption of technology, departure from our own traditional farming wisdom, access in cases and neglect in most, subsidies and cross subsidies for GM seeds to promote them at cost of our farming output strengths, exploitation of river than harnessing the capabilities of it through judicious use and above all, scant regard of our inherent climatologic, geographical and agriculture ecosystem derived from our ancient, respected and time proven technique of maintaining an equilibrium between our “Panch J” philosophy and its variables of “Jan, Jal, Jungle, Janwar and Jameen” which have bled the farmers and us as a nation.
Land holding patterns for farming other than agrarian inputs have also led devastation on this as a whole since to address these issues its pertinent that man-cattle-livestock-crop-ratio is maintained. Land holding inequality is reflected in land ownership. In 1991-92, as our base case decade, the share of the bottom half of the rural households in the total landownership were only 3%, with close to 11% of the rural population remaining virtually landless as against the top of being as high as 54%. This divide in landholding patterns has led the gap to widen with small farmers having no access to capital or government support have left farming completely and have started to immigrate to urban density centres, acting as cheap labour for sundry jobs thrown as crumbs towards them. This leads to a spiral of urban population struggling for their own residential clusters, spread again towards the land, where multi-crop fields once stood and encroach upon them for setting up urban centres of living thus eating away the sustainable fertile area which otherwise could have possible been used to sustain the dependency of the nation from its agri output. Farmers thus were led to believe that commercial interest of selling or leasing them to Multi-National Corporations for contract farming would assure them the monthly payout which would possibly would come with uncertainly should they themselves remain the tillers of the land. Acquisition of land holdings for developing industrial clusters in form of SEZ, FTZ & EPZ have further accentuated the issues for small and marginalized farmers. Initially they kept looking at the successive governments for support for them to intervene their plight however when they realized that they have all collectively failed, they sprung up in action to apply breaks on their grotesque commercial ambitions by protesting against forceful acquisition of their land holdings collectively to promote colonial interest. Nandigram, Singur, Panvel have all been recent examples of collective people might to safeguard their own interest first, which ideally remains as a state function.
The colonial government acting as protégés were still adamant to clear the suspicious Rehabilitation & Re-settlement Bill (to be read in conjunction with) Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill which dubiously could acquire any land for “public purpose” without citing reasons thereof - further which does not remains defined, bars the jurisdiction of civil courts on all matters for land acquisition; where as the former, supposed to be providing rehabilitation and re-settlement of benefits of compensation to the people displaced by land acquisition shockingly “ does not offer to require that these persons be resettled”. While, the statement of objects and reasons mentions minimising displacement, protecting livelihoods, and improving living conditions, the bill does not makes these clauses mandatory. Moreover the latter bill could acquire land on “urgency” basis; the former does not offer a clear timeframe for rehabilitation? This was stalled in last session of parliament by protests from Nationalist Alliances, Social Pressure groups and representation from small farming communities.
Situations remain alarming on water resources front as well. Its mis-use leading to blatant disregard for natural endowment and vested commercial interests have lead the rivers to dry up where they potentiality could have been harnessed to support Agriculture, its allied enterprise and illustration of environmental conservation. Bharat gets the most rainfall per square unit of land area & we were a surplus water nation however today we have all centres of urban and rural population deprived of this natural source of having to compensate for having forgotten the 5000 years of traditional water wisdom and remain the only reason for this crisis. Constructions of hydro electric dams, cross linking rivers as national water resource function, environmental pollution, and toxic waste dump into river beds, contraction of basins by construction alongside river beds – for expressway or for some 30 days of games have forced this catastrophe on the nation. These dams part of governmental showcase in garb of violations get them cheap publicity but push down the entire generation and the ones coming inn future into oblivion. The controversial Dams like
Agriculture:
- Agriculture policy to be reframed and made into an Act under guidance of our traditional eco centric development model based on “Panch J Philosophy of ; Jan, Jal, Jungle, Jameen, Janwar”
- Setting up of Natural Resource Commission to enhance bio-diversity of the nation and develop comprehensive strategies to this regard
- Agriculture to be allocated major share of government spending under planned outlay as central investments
- Agri-sector growth rate to be doubled in next 10 years keeping in mind the ecocentric self sustainable development model derived from “Panch J philosophy”
- Management of agriculture sector, natural resources and rural development with full participation of beneficiary stakeholders (farmers) in formulating agriculture policy
- Formation of Kisan co-operatives and ensure state machineries do not intervene in these co-operatives and promotion of these co-operatives across all levels within the country at State, District and Village level
- These co-operatives to act both as custodian of small credit off take, money deposits and also assist in information on suitable financing techniques for larger agriculture investments
- De-linking state intervention in execution of these policies, governed more by ecological and bio-diversity considerations of the agriculture area
- Critical review of state controls through various acts inhibiting the market cohesion such as Regulated Markets Act, Essential Commodity Act, Patent and Trade Regime Act and Agriculture Produce & Marketing Act
- Promotion of value added agriculture with emphasis on natural traditional farming techniques and Organic farming methods
- Promotion of Cow-centric farming developing and maintaining the Man-cattle ratio
- Develop awareness of these methods and impart education in natural resources management
- Review of subsidies and cautious analysis of issues and processes leading to safe guard mechanisms being introduced, central with National Interest whilst negotiating in Global Trade Forums
- Most Favoured Nation clauses and opening up of agriculture markets to be withdrawn until the nation achieves self reliance in agri production
- Formulation of polices achieving parity in Agriculture Produce and Consumer produce at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary levels
- Market Structure Reforms & Agri-Business Activities Reforms to be carried out to develop a holistic policy to ameliorate the dependency on GM/ Bt / HYV seed and capital intensive farming
- Institutional mechanisms to be developed to support Agriculture outputs at Village, District level and further be brought under direct control of policy commission so to be formulated with sole objective of developing indigenous methods of farming and doubling the farm output
- MNC’s / FDI investments would not be permitted in Agriculture or Rural dependent industries where the agriculture dependency balance is disturbed
- Suitable safeguards for Pre-harvest, Post Harvest, Processing, Preserving and Storage support mechanisms to be built in the policy formulation and farmer commissions to directly monitor this intervention
- Develop policies for regions which are not naturally endowed and state intervention to be brought on in parity with other plan funded investments to develop strategies to sustain models for upliftment depending upon the area’s rural or classes habiting these area’s
- Traditional Wisdom Banks would be crated in conjunction with State polices to promote other avenues and vocations than where farming is not an option to provide collective assimilation of these marginalized communities into the mainstream
- Critical review of Forestation rights, non displacement of forest dwellers and recurring avenues to enhance its share of contribution under agricultural output
- Patents and Trademark Review and policy formulation including negotiations in trade forums under stricter norms keeping central nation first, interest in mind
- Research and Development activities to be carried out to concentrate on local genetic pool in formal and non formal agriculture products
- Policy formulation to promote Forestry, Sericulture, Horticulture et al and value added products to enhance multiple avenues of revenue for farmers
- Studies to be conducted to promote and support farming of medicinal plants with suitable investigation on the agro-climatic suitability of for cultivation of these plans in various agro-zones in the country
- Policy formulation to have specific AEZ (Agro Economic Zones) with community ownership with gradual phase out of state intervention to promote agriculture product exchange markets at National level allowing farmers to have access to larger consumption markets
- Basic Minimum Support Prices to be announced pre-harvest and they to be listed, published and awareness spread through district level agri-centres
- Financial Institutions affording farm credit, capital credit for agri inputs to brought under a centralised farming commission and credit schemes to be brought below the commercial interest rates prevailing with the market, with gradual phase out of subsidies
- Mandi’s to be set up at each district level and agri-exchange centres also to be set up to determine free parity on sell/buy prices as determined by free market forces of supply and demand
Land:
- Land holding and ceilings for individuals and establishments to be determined and polices to safeguard equitable distribution amongst small and marginalized farmers to be achieved
- Firm outlined and transparent Land Acquisition processes and Rehabilitation and Resettlement procedures to be outlined and converted into an act ensuring suitable compensation, incase acquired, in equitable proportion of land or cost of replacement as determined by existing market prices
- Acquisition of land for other than public purpose, including industrial clusters, SEZ or promotion of other industrial activities to be brought on parity with the above policy formulation
- Sacredness of Land rights, Forest Dwellers Right and Aboriginals right to be protected by forming co-operatives and community ownership of lands as was evident in our ancient tradition
- Waste land strategies to be developed in accordance with density of populace and where ever possible to be used for re-settlement avenues for both rural and urban population
- Individual hoarding of land as assets under benaami transactions to be brought out in public in distributed equally amongst land less farmers and peasants
- Law enacting control of real estate transactions with punitive measures and brought under direct control over urban settlement and rural settlement bodies. Excess of land to be distributed
Water:
- 70% of the natural flow of all rivers to be maintained given their presence as part of our traditional culture and heritage
- This would also allow the river to maintain its natural purity through sufficient oxidation and shall further restrict any disturbance from ecological and environment perspective
- Water management and preservations to be augmented through divisions of the country on water zones stretching from the
- Each zone to be responsible and accountable for water management and watershed management techniques and further responsible for sustainable development and environmental upkeep of these zones
- This to include, River water conservation, check on river depletion, re-excavation of canals and irrigation tanks, ponds, ensure de-silt of river bed by deepening it to allow for its natural flow and flood water management
- Also further to include, Irrigation and drainage water management, drinking water and its allied distribution to residential or industrial clusters, check on pollution dump and toxic waste into the river bed, avoiding construction alongside river bed and Fresh water management
- Ecological sustenance of water resources, including ponds, tributaries, rural and urban water conservation faculties
- Capital intensive constructions such as Dams projects formations to be critically reviewed and put to stringent checks and balances prior approved
- Steps to ensure restoration of all traditional water management, water shed techniques and dissemination of educating people of this through Natural Resource Management mission and proposed District Agriculture Centres
- Conflict arsing out of river water sharing between states to be sorted out by declaring these rivers as national assets and freeing away the control of states in deciding or implementing stand alone state specific strategies. River resources to be managed by zones and states falling in those zones to be governed by the central river water management policies
- Restoration of river and its natural tributaries as per ecological diversity and methods employed to check river bed erosion and its rightful conservation, to ensure the river flows in real sense of the term through out the year
Strengthen our Social Development, Health & Education Structure:
The nation has lagged behind drastically in undertaking measures for over all holistic development of its people despite the entire governing machinery running to achieve meeting the basic minimum requirements for food, shelter, education, and health implementation. Government for the people, by the people have just been adorning the reams of reports which are churned with enthusiastic vigour yet convey a far more dismal picture with no matching intent of actually able to execute these reports to their end objective. Majority of the nations population is still surviving on less than 20 Rupees a day and it would be callous impression to conclude that the development of socialistic schemes have met with desired response. With this capita income and below the poverty line classification, arranging for square meal a day lays its own struggle for existence than to worry about the ancillary benefits of being governed in a democracy of state protection to provide for other requirements. We are now in the process of implementing 11th Five Year Plan cycle and yet have failed to address the basic necessities of countries populace with all the preceding one’s and schemes have all but rotten to provide for inclusive development opportunities, rightly to be accepted as gross failure as a nation.
According to government reports and other Non governmental associations, including international organizations estimates, 27.5% of the population is below national income poverty line estimates. More than 60% of women are chronically poor, as are 43% of the Scheduled Tribes and 36% of Scheduled caste groups. More than 90% of the workforce is employed in informal economy (non government schemes) for women it’s even higher at 96%. Literacy has not covered close to 296 million of our population and further 233 million people are under nourished, particularly children under the age of 3. Maternal mortality rate, an indicator not only of health services but genuine concern for women target schemes as well – stands at 301 per 100,000 births. These statistics puts the nation as a whole with immediate comparisons of Sub-Sahara African countries, strife and insurgency driven nations, with survival only guaranteed through pleaded international grants and intervention.
This is how far we have reached in our efforts with 5 year plans and their implementation cycles. The statistics further convey the poor state of our health care programmes and state of affairs on education of children, only at level of primaries with 53% of them not having regular access to quality education. The policies of social inclusion have just best served for vote bank politics all these years and none of the governments have gone ahead to put together a comparative score card in achieving these targets, since this would reflect their poor governance records. Mere addressing the problems and not their causes has resulted in a myopic vision. Resultantly planned expenditures have increased without any recourse year after year in the budgets process but the gap kept widening itself as well and mere multiplication of these allocations to the demand at the basic level have still not been able to close on the need for addressing basic objectives. Social inclusion factors from basics now have become cumbersome scheme-centric propositions and priorities this continue to change with each laying claim depending more on the whims and less on the actual demands of these services. It’s an irony that fundamental rights which were supposed to equip the masses at the tertiary level itself have become primary issues and despite these introductions, post all these passed decades of independence still lack the holistic vision to ensure these could be managed. For e.g. “Right to food” – does not mandatory ensures, right to nutritious food. “Right to education” – remains much as a slogan, since that does not focuses on the “right to learning, or concentration on the delivery mechanism with respect to educational infrastructure, more schools with equipped teacher-student ratio being maintained. Each state government today faces an acute shortage of primary school teachers and yet “acts” merely have introduced to as euphemism to augment education initiatives and calling in “private” establishments to invest even in these primary goals commercialised the educational sector more, than developing the apparatus. It’s a mere fact known that “private schools” have become a tad new fad for even the smallest of the populace to afford a mandate of “quality” education, putting in more pressure to educate their wards with a fine balance of maintain livelihood as well. This correlates the number of school dropouts even before they move into the secondary education, where the cost of education becomes much steeper. The process as such has been debated by academicians, policy formulating think tanks and parliamentary commissions of having hurdles to cross to achieve even basic literacy levels, forgetting about developing that to a skill through further progression to University levels. Yet nothing stands achieved.
Similarly, various “awaas vikas neetis” have been formulated under “right to shelter” however the nexus of state machineries with real estate land grabbers is factually known in the country today. Low cost housings developed are far away from urban municipality limits without any infrastructure to support, be it schools, primary health centres, electricity, water connections, sewage facilities and distance from urban or industrial centres of employment, making it all the more difficult for settlement. The accessible high yielding profit lands are auctioned by state development authorities to private players and are replaced by commercial centres than houses and some of they do all come puts pressure on the resultant affordability of acquiring these low cost shelters, mockingly priced upwards of few lakhs of rupees remains beyond the reach of people who were central to these schemes.
Access to basic health facilities remain a distant dream for upwards of 38% of the population. Primary health centres simply exists on papers with not even meeting the basic criteria from infrastructure perspective for treatment of minor health ailments. Governments having declared itself as a welfare state are yet to integrate the policies with the intent of developing a holistic welfare mechanism. Primary health centres are the nucleus of any outreach programme and there is no focus on increasing this number to penetrate the population density till villagers.
It is evident that a holistic vision needs to be built for inclusive social development and its variables for Health, Education and Shelter and we thus propose the following:
· Develop comprehensive strategy to reform the existing public policy interventions by having its focus on “antyoday” principal i.e. Welfare of the last person on the societal hierarchy to come first
· Focus on social and public delivery mechanism and setting up direct monitoring of the outlays on project basis, than scheme basis
· Simply governance principles to be outlined and headed under 5 major categories such as PDS, Health, Civic Governance, Food and Shelter and all schemes running under central or state patronage to be amalgamated into these or other necessary categories, if needed to achieve better focus on design and objectively monitor the execution outcomes
· Planned funding to be directly made available to these categories and bureaucracy to supplement their execution, a major function than discreetly then unnecessary intervention on policy formulation with multiple channel layers of decision and approvals
· Strengthen Lok Pal institution to check on the rampant corruption which plagues most of these initiatives to reach conclusive levels
· Public Distribution System and Target PDS mechanisms to have less of intervention from state machineries and co-operative mechanisms linked to the Panchayat’s to be developed to ensure consistent service deliveries of projects of higher social magnitude
Health:
· Review and reform the basic health care infrastructure nationally
· This to include setting up of Tertiary Health Centres at Panchayat, Block level and with control of its functioning resting with the empowered group at grass root level
· Health Centres penetration to be increased with each block of 5000 people to mandatory have one THC and upwards to 15,000 one Primary Health Centre with District Health Centres adding with State Hospitals. This continually to be reduced gradually with reach and accessibility of a Health Centre within a 5 km radius
· Paramedical and first aid training education to be imparted at the village level to check on dependency for nodal health care centres for primary health needs
· Creation of self-help medical groups equipped with provisions of basic health care and mid-wife courses identified for women groups to ensure pre-post pregnancy support
· State level hospitals and private hospitals to mandatory take responsibility for district level health centres as responsibility and they mandatory to have 25% of their beds available for free treatment and admissions for the villages, block of there district jurisdiction
· Promotion of Ayurvedic, Homeopathy and naturopathy as alternative modes of treatment supplementing primary health needs
· Health care scheme – for target implementation with priority focus on women, children, elderly and deprived groups
· Spread of community awareness from Panchayat office for these health centres
· Use of IT where ever possible to develop an ICT mechanism for tele-medicine opportunities to be developed, linked to the PHC or Panchayat office for support drawn from State Hospitals
· Mandatory posting of Medical Graduates in block of villages identified under the
· Increase budget of Health Care Services as percentage of GDP, as planned expenditure
Education:
· Educational serviced to be decentralised with “Right to Education” compulsorily to be reaffirmed as a state function
· Education infrastructure to be core thrust area including appointment of primary teachers at villages with extra incentive as remuneration for graduates to opt this as a sustainable vocation and avoid they being attracted to private players at urban centres
· Right to education, to be read in conjunction with right to learn and state, district educational authorities to be measured on the level of literacy being observed on quality parameters of education delivery
· Compulsory funding of infrastructure for school in rural areas by state apparatus and private establishments to compulsory ensure admissions of village, block wards free of cost for 15% of the seat stenght
· Single school’s to be promoted where the infrastructural lacunas are challenging the implementation of a complete setting up of educational facilities and volunteer bank created thereof to support the regular involvement of privileged few for the cause
· Training to be provided to the youth to take up alternative options in imparting education amongst the villages
· Community participation to be fostered through awareness and implied benefits of education to villages, especially for the girl child and various schemes to be introduced to ensure thrust on girl child education retains focus and attraction to schools by introduction of mid-day meals and other vocational training methods to develop confidence on their livelihood abilities for future
· Focus on integrated educational development which assures the right of employment than right of knowledge and its use in the developing world with efforts to de-link the degree’s with occupational experience to afford creation of equal opportunities pool for further employment for people who have the skills but no formal education to achieve mainstream assimilation
· Alternative methods such as open schools, summer schools, night schools and mobile schools would also be developed to ensure the penetration of the educational inclusive development is made available across to all sections of the society
Strengthen our Women and their development:
Women have a special place in our religion, traditional and culture and forms one of the basic philosophy of our Hindu tenants, because of the special quality of motherhood, women have a special respect in the public welfare society. Women empowerment has been a long last debate in our policy of social inclusion yet we have not able to impart and create a special attention to these issues despite this been intricately woven as part of our social & religious fibre. It is a known fact that women constitute the highest number in deprived society and yet neither they have been accorded any special rights either in polity or part of our social assimilation efforts. We have imbibing from our moral cultural resources paid scant respect of this deprived section be it in form of livelihood opportunities, which again has the highest percentage, upwards of 60% as part of non-formal economy or basic civic health, shelter or conclusive opportunities in trade, agriculture or commerce. The state of Bhartiya women is deplorable with rising incidences of right based issues, displacements, crimes and discrimination on account of gender, when the first citizen of the country happens to be women herself.
These issues have achieved a glaring insensitivity to there causes and so much so that despite a section of society hailing motherhood and its achievements, close to 78% of the women population still face discrimination on the basis of their gender. It is a known fact that immoral ideologies and believes towards women as well have led to a rampant practice of not accepting the birth of a girl child and is seen as contempt, where sons are considered to be the natural heirs of future generation. This sick mindset of discrimination, which starts right from the birth of a girl child, grows all the way up the society hierarchy and have still remain to be there despite education, awareness and assimilation of modern thoughts bred in traditions. Rights of Women to empower them with special attention are needed to ensure that this discrimination is completely abolished and women are able to assert themselves, being independent in their conduct in all fields of the society. To ensure, this stands achieved, following is proposed;
· Formulation of special women centric policies to ensure the dignity, societal interaction and rights of women are protected and allows an equal opportunity pool to progress
· Provide equal participation to women by providing reservation of 33% in parliamentary processes, in Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha
· Continue to strengthen accesses at grass root administration levels, the panchayats and supplement it further by women centric development schemes by invoicing them as part of policy formulation
· All rights of women to be governed in accordance with the constitutions granting an equal status and abolishment of all personal law boards which restricts their dignity to these rights
· Constitutional review would also include other rights governed by various personal law boards and would clearly include their special status with respect to Share in property inheritance, adoption of a child on self declaration basis, suitable amendments with respect to divorce matters and compensation to be received thereof, compulsory registration of marriages and complete abolishment of “Live-in” acts which transgress on women dignity, treating them as commodities and their subsequent rights
· Formulation of specific policies concerning women and girl child health, civic facilities, specially in rural areas with high priority focus for education, basic minimum nutrition, pre & post natal support and reservation in local livelihood opportunities
· Women to get preference in agriculture co-operative’s and they would be compulsory involved in all policy formulation right from the panchayat level
· 33% reservation of women at panchayat level to be retained and possibly increased if they are found wanting for desired outcomes
· Trade Co-operatives for women, managed by women to be formed at rural and urban levels for women to regain a sustainable confidence on their abilities
· Micro-credit and micro-insurance, policies to be formulated to ensure small credit access is available for agriculture, trade, cottage, handicraft or handloom industries and insurance polices thereof to protect their respective interest in case of any exigency
· Free education to the Girl Child at all levels, including University and Professional qualifications, specially coming from less economic privileged sections of the society
· Crimes against women to be treated with severity and special courts would be formed to ensure speedy justice, with trials under closed doors to ensure the dignity of the women remains protected together with special schemes of rehabilitation for victims of such crimes and a witness protection programmes for women, if they come forward to testify against these crimes
· Laws to avoid any sort of manifestation of women in form of a commodity through media or cultural presentations would be dealt with severely
· National Women Rights Commission to be strengthened to ensure speedy justice, trials and addressales of their grievances, including issues related to their rights, education, health, law & order and justice with sub nodal offices, manned by women themselves would be accessible from panchayat level itself right unto the central level
Strengthen our Energy & Power Economic Structure:
To achieve consistency of growth the economic enterprise of any nation depends upon the judicious use of its resources, including energy. Any depletion on these strengths forces a nation to remain dependent upon the vagaries and intermittent demands made by the supplier countries. The economic sovereignty of a nation is to be fully capable of meeting the needs of its people as much as possible to ensure the nationalistic temperament is not compromised. We have had some success in the past of making ourselves reach at a level of self sufficiency however this has only met with some partial success.
Few states owing to their state centric ambitions have become power surplus and few have lagged behind due to lack of will and determination. The national power grid though yet remaining a central function has not developed itself as a autonomous function with state interventions acting as electricity brokers extracting governmental grants and subsidies in lieu of national exchange. Initially the government tried to conduct its policies for self developing these strengths but under the pressure of capitalist formation through PPP model was the last nail which brought even this nationalistic vigour of growing from our own strength to a grinding halt. The doles of grants, which perhaps levelled itself as a domestic state-central issue drew on international intervention with developed economies looking our nations rich energy sector for exploitation. Blatant greed to prove a meritorious point for the capitalist masters, the impact of following these policies at the cost of national exchequer, non negotiating the power purchasing agreements and open liberation by virtue of seeking investments without any checks and balances has given this country instances like Enron –Dabhol Power Projects which were granted solely on the basis of greasing of corrupt politicians palms with each Mw of energy costing much more than possibly been developed domestically. All this under the garb of investments and opening of our economy to a vital state function of energy self sufficiency.
As recent as National assets such as Gas & Oil exploration contracts have become a field of two warring brothers without any scant regard of the constitution, the governance machinery or the polity towards these countries assets, solely to be divided all between themselves. This just proves the level of corruption and level of uncouth profiteering to fuel business expansion which has crept into this sector.
Hydel power projects have been commissioned which have and still continue to degrade the environment with a wide gap to cover the planned generation of electricity Vs what is being generated and the resultant impact of these on the rivers of the country, ecology where they are being set and displacement in numbers of people, which could perhaps equal the numbers of a smaller country any where in the world. Despite these measures Bharat today remains the net importer of crude oil, one of the largest in the world today, depleting the foreign exchange reserves. A costly victim of inefficient state policies, which further continues to deplete our foreign exchange reserves. Not long ago the nation had to mortgage its entire gold reserves to raise capital for necessary functioning of the country and if we continue to follow the paths of these capitalistic diktats for as fragile as energy conservation and generation policies, we perhaps would not be very far away to revisit that shameful experience.
Unfortunately there is yet no clear policy from the central government to address these issues and resultantly upwards of 22% of the villages still do not have electricity, and others who have, have it with them intermittently. Backbone of any industrious nation runs on the fuel of self sustaining energy needs and yet with a growing admiration of pro-American policies, the last effort to secure our own pride also layed compromised in the form of Nuclear Power arrangements. With all non renewable sources of energy being exploited, Nuclear power could assist the nation to grow beyond the energy needs however protectionism and genuine safeguards need to be built up first to ensure we do not land up giving away more than what we ideally should have kept for us. Thus, following stands proposed;
- Critically review the existing policies for energy sector, including Oil & Gas, Coal and Hydel based projects and formulate a bespoke central policy on energy all brought under a single header
- Re- Nationalise all these initiatives and they again to be brought under central control with PPP model only to be opened up on select advantages basis through rigorous checks & balances, including Nuclear energy options
- All natural energy reserves to be declared as national assets with central intervention remaining necessary for any potential partnership opportunities, initially restricted only to technology transfer and electricity generation.
- The National Power Grid to be strengthened with state interventions being completely withdrawn and setting up of a National exchange to responsible for distribution of energy to state electricity boards, which further to be made accountable for transmission and distribution, centrally
- This would reduce the subsidy burden on the national exchequer and would further stop vote bank politics of announcing sops such as free electricity, waivers and subsidies as means of political instrument
- Formulate clear policies to utilise optimum use of available energy resources reducing dependency on renewable source of energy, with tariff rationality
- Alternative sources of energy to be promoted such as Ocean, Kinetic, Solar and Bio-mass to attain self sufficiency on energy sector reducing dependency on Hydro, Fossil fuel. Selective discretion on use of Nuclear energy capabilities without comprising Nation’s economic or defence sovereignty
- Achieve power self reliance with each part of the country to receive electricity in 10 years
Strengthen our Security & International Policy Initiatives:
Bharat has had an ancient and traditional resilience to other cultures and despite invasions and long rules of tyranny have assimilated all the evading cultures as part of its own. This has developed the nation to develop its own homogeneity in its temperament and remains as a nation according respect to all assimilations regardless of ethnicity, language, culture, profess religions norms and creed factors. It is true that in long drawn history, Bharat has never invaded any country for expanding its own geographical intent, yet the power which the nation reflects in this temperament is construed as a weakness towards the entire national apparatus.
We have seen four wars in less than 6 decades of our having attained independence and having won all these wars, as serious effort is wanting in our approach to assert our independence and tolerance to these machinations of our neighbours. We have been continuously witnessing a potent threat to our sovereignty through direct and low intensity conflicts, more as a policy to inflict thousand cuts to bleed on us by countries like
Our military might is amongst the best and each one of us, remains proud on their services. On these strengths which is the only protection we could possibly yield in today’s context, having outgrown there nefarious designs for fear of a direct conflict through this might, we yet through our central government formation have been found lacking in supplementing these to our security measures. We have not been able to extract our own share of negotiations, including the most wanted people who have got safe heavens in countries as
The recent incursions of China, the statement at Sharm-al-Sheikh by none other than the Prime Minister acknowledging involvement in Pakistanis internal affairs, demonstrates an air of casualness on the matters concentrating the foreign policy and security establishment interests for our nation. Pro-American policies to look at Bharat as a potent arms market and ensure the ailing economy of America is propped up by the defence and arms manufacturing firms have all but fuelled the interest of our polity to act as fronting these deals as brokers than firmly denouncing these overtures without bargaining a suitable concession in form of keeping their protégé, Pakistan under a check. All around Bharat, low intensity conflicts have been propped up, supporting the cause of anti-national interests and free passage to terrorist activities even if they are caught, have all but clearly exposed our ability to ensure a counter offensive mechanism to these countries.
Our foreign policy needs to be evaluated as well. Bharat shares a warm relationship with most of the countries and there are in numerous examples of friendly support during global negotiations, yet these nations have had served their own interest when coming to vote for a permanent seat in UN Security Council. Sadly but true, our policy failures is clearly demonstrated when we can not even count a single nation as a close friend who could possibly support us in event of a full blown high intensity war. Our failure as policy measures have had the less of an impact in impressing our economic might with developing cohesive relationships even within the Bhartiya sub continent countries of Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and Burma. In context, It is thus proposed,
- Bharat to clearly outline its security measures and communicate these as part of foreign policy initiatives critically reviewing the present and future dangers to its national sovereignty
- Our international relationships to be developed on basis of mutual cooperation on international and domestic measures and opening up of our economy, along with
- Diplomatic initiatives to be strengthened with Pro-Bharat, stronger and friendly nations including participation in mutual economic interests to develop a pool of friendly nations
- Internal and External Security measures to be accorded utmost priority with Defence sector remaining on high priority core formulation of central action and intervention together with Agriculture, Finance, Commerce and External Affairs
- Policy of “Hot Pursuit” to be implemented to contain the ever growing threat of terror from across the borders, including containing the illegal immigration threat through our porous borders
- Stringent measures to be taken to reclaim the lost land of the Nation from both
- Assert ourselves by retaining our option of development of arms and armaments, including Nuclear Capability as safeguard protection against any external threat would not succumb to one sided NPT treatise despite arm twisting by Pro-American forces
- Percentage outlay for defence budgets to correspondingly increase in proportion to the evaluation of threat perceptibility of the country and reduction incase of that being diminished
- Internal security and low intensity conflicts to be managed by Para-Military and Police forces and Defence forces would be freed from these conflicts which sap there capabilities, unless specially warranted
- Spruce existing laws and formulate policies to strengthen the Central and State police forces, including filling up of vacant posts and generating sufficient opportunities for their remuneration at par with other central group services to attract and retain the talent
- Strengthen our intelligence, central investigation and Judicial apparatus to ensure speedy trials of terror accused and introduce stringent laws to ensure they are not able to have any legal loopholes in the process
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