So today 6th July 2010, was "Bharat Bandh" declared by the Opposition parties (read NDA and Left Parties)in opposition to the deregulation of fuels.
CII reported losses on account of this to be $641 million. ASSOCHAM had loss estimate to be $2.1 billion.
Newspapers, trade pundits, managers, B-school grads all were busy calculating the per day loss on the gross domestic product of India. The common man was enjoying a cup of tea in the lovely weather thanks to the unexpected break after the weekend.
We all ignored a "small" issue.
The daily roadside hawker who feeds his family everyday by buying bread earned everyday from his sales. In all these macro calculation, we forgot the heart of India. According to NSSO survey reports, there are over 80 million urban poor living in towns and cities of India. We talk about "Double dip recession", "Double digit growth", "Wholesale Price Index", "Food Inflation" and so on.
But what about the poor man who cannot earn on a working day because we were opposing fuel hike and inflation? That is the paradox of India. We are the country of paradoxes.
**India's rank in Human Development Index is 134 out of 182 countries.We are the eleventh largest economy in the world by nominal GDP
**India ranks fourth in the world by Purchasing Power Parity. Even then nearly two million children in India don't celebrate their sixth birthday.
**410 million Indians are below the poverty line. 126700 Indians are "super duper" rich who can wipe out the trade deficit in one go.
When we talk about millions and indexes and percentages, we lose the human touch. How is the daily worker is concerned if RBI increases repo rate and reverse repo rate? How does the safai wali concerned if the ESI limit is increased? A farmer in debt is not even bothered by BPLR or the Base Rate.
"We" who dream of plush offices, skip a beat on talking about Sensex, Employer of Choice, just turn our backs on these questions.
"How come his salary is more than mine" might
be answered but the agony of 37.2% of the population will not end unless something is done.
We got a holiday on this event. And all of my friends did completely resent this idea of disrupting the daily affairs of such a huge nation where still some people live in a state of "eat the day you could earn" kind. It was like we beleived in this singular idea of fairness and that the governments after governments have been incapable in maintaing this state of fairness on every level, including economic and social.
ReplyDeleteBut then this idea bumped in my mind as well.... that maybe this was what the true intention of the call was. We cant forget that the idea of 'Bandh' was infact instigated by Gandhiji himself. What, IMO he really meant by this was that one day out of our busy lives, we stop, focus on our problems, think clearly on the solutions ourself. You did this and wrote about the problems isn't it. And so did all those who rested and perhaps didn't eat as well (i had to skip my lunch too :[ ) We all know how many times we really think about the interest of the nation anyway ;)