“On the 26th January, 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long should we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has laboriously built up.”
Dr B.R. Ambedkar
The architect of the Indian Constitution
Dear Sir,
His warning that economically and socially deprived people might one day blow up the structure of political democracy is proving prophetic. In about 20 States of the Indian Republic right from the border of Nepal to the periphery of Kerala, the chronically deprived people have picked up guns to defend their rights. You, sir have characterised this phenomenon as the most potent internal threat to the security of India.
On the one hand we have the largest number of dollar billionaires in Asia. The other side, at the base of the social pyramid are the toiling millions who find it difficult to survive.
The Government of India appointed a Commission on Unorganised Enterprises under the chairmanship of Dr Arjun Sen Gupta. The unorganised sector, including agriculture and other sundry occupations providing livelihood to a large segment of Indian population, covers, according to official figures, 94 per cent of our work force. The report of this Commission states that 77 per cent of the Indian population live on less than twenty rupees per capita per day.
The National Crimes Records Bureau estimates that about two lakh farmers committed suicide between 1997-2008. It is the largest single wave of suicides recorded in history. Agriculture has become a losing concern. A farmer does not get the price of his produce in proportion to the rise in the cost of inputs like fertilisers, pesticides etc. The peasant indebtedness is on the increase all over the country. The 2001 Census reveals that eight million cultivators quit agriculture between 1991 and 2001.
India’s record is the worst in the world in the matter of hunger and malnutrition. As per the National Family Health Survey (2006), child malnutrition is 46 per cent in India. In the Global Huger Index, ranks 66th among 88 countries surveyed—below Sudan, Nigeria and Cameron and slightly above Bangladesh.A UNICEF report states that 1.95 million children below the age of five die annually mainly form preventable causes that are directly or indirectly attributable to mal-nutrition.
But, why am I telling you all this, these are facts that have been stated by many over and over again, so, I will just end with a quote from Swami Vivekanand -
“We are responsible for what we are, and whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves. If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in future can be produced by our present actions; so we have to know how to act.”
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