Poverty reduction in an elite-driven democracy: the case of India.

Hassan, Khalid Wasim

V. M. Rao

Institute for Human Development and Daanish Books, New Delhi, 2005, Pages-xxiii +328; Price Rs. 275

V.M.Rao, a retired professor of economics has written extensively on issues relating to poverty, agriculture and rural development. This book under review focuses on the failure of the anti-poverty policies in India that result from the elite driven feature of its democracy. The author describes the Indian democracy as elite-driven, as it primarily serves the consumerist and parasitic priorities of the elites and middle classes. There is a wide gap in this respect between what an elite driven democracy does-giving doles and what it promises to the poor in its plan. In this book a three-phase conceptual framework to argue that India is still lagging behind in alleviating hardcore poverty.

Part I of the book--Beyond Relief Measures discusses the low Human Development and the lack of empowerment of the poor. The author emphasizes that the process of poverty reduction focused on improving conditions of the poor in their local contexts without taking note of global linkages that generate poverty. On the other hand, the institutional reforms fall far short of the reforms needed for the empowerment of the poor in the sense of eliminating relative poverty. There is a possibility that if legitimate path for the poor to move towards empowerment remain closed, they would propel towards less legitimate paths. The author also gives us the Human Development status of various states, some of which are at the rock bottom of the ranking. Taking the example from Karanataka, the author makes a point that the policies to raise the Human Development levels should take into consideration the historical, social and economic factors influencing the human development. Sometimes it is very difficult to select beneficiaries for the programs for the poor. The author stresses on the need to choose indicators which are more effective in monitoring the process of poverty reduction than the poverty line. According to the author the selection procedure can be simplified by enabling the PRIs to take this task. It is hoped that decentralized planner would be able to make better use of large funds because he belongs to rural environment and has close links with the rural poor.

The second part discusses the poverty generating processes with special focus on marginalization process in the agriculture and the policy weaknesses in creating livelihood for poor. There has been a secular growth in the number of small and marginal farmers and in their proportion to the total number of farmers which has serious implications on poverty reduction. The livelihood perspective of poverty was brought in by reflecting on the poor districts of Maharastra. The issue of farmer's distress is also taken up in this part. The non-caring regime and drought prone environment are made responsible for the spate of suicides among the farmers in recent years. It is argued strongly that the farmer's suicide cannot be considered as a tragedy confined to individuals and household affected by them but are symptoms of deeper disease. Analysis of faulty irrigation policies and neglect of watershed and land development throws light on the farmers' plight. The various indicators reflecting the agriculture backwardness of five states--Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madras, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are also discussed. The rural-urban divide, a contemporary issue, was highlighted taking Bangalore--Indian version of Silicon Valley and the rural version poor in its vicinity. The rural people do not get any benefit in terms of earning their livelihoods in the growing metropolitan centre located in their door step. The last section of the part II provides a picture as why the benefits of policies are not trickling down to the poorest of the poor. The better-off sections are only able to take the benefits due to biases and distortions by policy makers. The less visible and less vocal sections among the poor are left out in the anti poverty policies.

Part III seeks to bring out the role of systemic view and international community for poverty reduction in developed countries rather than the statistical perspective which guided relief measures. The strategy of microfinance with the help of self help groups (SHGs) and the participation of poor to counter grip of elite helps in constructing systematic view. The author also brings the role those external change agents like NGO's, civil society groups, activists and community based organizations can play a vital role for the improvement of the poor. The studies made in Bihar and West Bengal on micro finance and political mobilization provide valuable insights for the policy makers the effectiveness of anti- poverty strategies depends on the three distinctive roles which international community (UN and World Bank) has to play for poverty reduction. The three roles are helping the formation of alliance of developing and developed countries against poverty facilitating role to form strategies and an interventionist role by implementing anti-poverty programmes at ground level. The author comments that international donors may get impatient with India's inability to show achievement in poverty reduction and human development. In that context, the author concludes and pleads strongly saying that statistical perspective is not enough and there is a need for systematic view for going beyond relief measures.

This book becomes important in the present era when on the one hand India is competing with the other developed countries in the world and on the other hand the hardcore poverty still exists in many regions. While much of the literature these days concentrate on the themes like globalization and the market economy and the study of the poverty is left out and it is heartening that this book has taken up. The indicators to measure the various forms of poverty in this book are helpful for the researchers who want to take up the issues like poverty reduction, Human Development, etc. The criticism of non caring policy regimes by the author need to be taken seriously at the policy level in order to come up with the policies which will be more effective and go beyond relief measures.

However, all is not well with the book as it fails to discuss external factors like the globalization and influence of market in a comprehensive manner. The study only looks at government policies as the main reason for existing poverty, while there are many other factors that equally contribute to poverty. The study also grossly ignores the implementation of poverty policies and measures. The study of only four south Indian states does not give the clear picture of the whole India and it lacks the comparative study of the south Indian states especially with the BIMARU states where large section of the population is poor. The farmers' distress and suicides which is very relevant in the present context has not been discussed deeply and the causes given by the author like non-caring regimes and drought prone areas are only one side of the problem. The discussion on rural-urban divide by taking example of Bangalore has failed to mention the role of market in developing the rich core and the poor periphery. But the author has been successful in bringing out the Poverty of 'Poverty Reduction Policies' of the government.

Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore (Karnataka). e-mail: khalidwaseemster@gmail.com