Of paradox and possibility

While the collective power of many small (apolitical) efforts to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process.

India is a land of paradox: if there is poverty amidst prosperity then hope can be traced amidst despair too. Despite being an increasingly unequal society that produces real victims and genuine tragedies on a daily basis, it inadvertently leaves people to create possibilities for their own emancipation as well. With humane development far distanced from a sizable population, individual creativity is innovating new pathways for leftovers of the society to tread on. For millions trapped in the downstream economy of deprivation, ordinary folks are scripting extraordinary tales of bringing basic elements - potable water, safe food, and fresh air - within peoples’ reach.

Elemental India is an inspiring journey through this landscape of paradox and possibilities, a compendium of stories weaved together to reflect the essence of pancha mahabhuta – five elements that constitute nature. Within the geographical bounties of the sub-continent, a wide array of fascinating survival options are being created by enterprising individuals and institutions to keep the ‘five elements’ in harmony. Embedded in this quest for alternatives are personal journeys of some of these individuals in search of a meaning of life.   

Umendra’s crusade for organic agriculture in Punjab; Kanhaiya’s relentless pursuit for water in Rajasthan; and Pinki’s tirade for women liberation in Bihar are few of those stories, offering counter narrative to the dominant discourse on development that hinges on industrialization. That there is an alternate way of life and an alternate approach to human development that doesn’t compromise on any of the five elements is the leitmotif of these stories. Meera Subramanian does not miss out on details while capturing the vignettes of change sweeping the country.

Inspiring as the stories may be, these remain on the margins of mainstream growth agenda of the state. One reason for this being so has to do with the very nature of these initiatives, as these occur outside the purview of the state by non-state actors.  Consequently, the state is under no obligation to integrate such products or processes in its institutional architecture. Need it be said that successive governments have often been hostile to the environmentalism of its times. 

Another reason for non-acknowledging such transformative stories has to do with the state’s obsession with double-digit economic growth, wherein ecological concerns are viewed as middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling progress. With ‘Make in India’ being the current dictum of growth, it is quite unlikely if equity and ecological concerns will merit any serious consideration in the prevailing political-economy of development.    

Unlike most first generation non-resident Indians, the author carries compassion for country’s rich culture and its intrinsic value system. With a stint at one of the environmental non-profits in the US, she has developed empathy for deprived people and appreciation for bottom-up change. Building on her investigative analysis, she argues in favor of a new economy that neither loses sight of the last man nor country’s irreplaceable natural resources. 

Having been privy to most stories and people featured in the book, I am both at an advantage and a disadvantage as a reviewer. The advantage is that one can quickly relate to the stories, and the disadvantage being that one closely understands their unresolved complexities. While the collective power of many small efforts (largely apolitical) to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process. How two divergent forces can be made to enter into a dialogue has remained a vexed question?   

No surprise, therefore, that the author toes the predictable line of argument in renewing her hopes that small stories have the potential to trigger big change, towards a secure, sustainable, and prosperous future. The issue of scale has remained unaddressed, though.

In addition to making an interesting reading, Elemental India is a grim reminder on the challenges confronting the country, and gives a timely call to the policy planners to evolve an intrinsic Indian model of development which is more proactive and permanent. Neither Nehru’s monolithic top-down industrialization nor Gandhi’s austere agrarian model can suit the changing India, which is young and aspiring. It needs a new script for change that draws the best from both, capitalizing on its human and natural resources. 

Elemental India
by Meera Subramanian
Harper Litmus, New Delhi
Extent: 340, Price: Rs 599

This review was first published in The Hindustan Times dated July 23, 2016.

All smoke, no fire

Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue is essentially linked to people and their daily survival? 

Need it be said that integrating environmental concerns into the mainstream of economic growth is beset with unresolved complexities, leading to unwarranted conflicts. No surprise, therefore, that for the present-day growth-obsessed state politics, ecological concerns are no more than middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling economic progress, which the growth-jihadis have unhesitatingly started calling a conspiracy to keep the country in a state of perpetual poverty.

Notwithstanding the fact that successive governments have been hostile to the environmentalism of its times albeit selectively, during his 25-month tenure as the minister of environment, Jairam Ramesh remained firm in acknowledging that the dissenting voices of non-governmental organisations were essential to the democratic processes, and not part of some foreign plot to destabilize the country. Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue was essentially linked to people and their daily survival?

Green Signals chronicles the time spent by the author behind the “transparent door” (he apparently installed transparent doors wherever he had been a minister) which led to the transformation of an enviro-agnostic into an enviro-believer minister, and Ramesh doesn’t seem to have any regrets on this unintended conversion because he was tasked to rid the ministry of its “corrupt” and “managed” image. To this end, and much to the displeasure of his cabinet colleagues, the minister not only heard every word of dissent, but engaged with multiple stakeholders to let them into the policy-making process.

Far from scoring any brownie points from among competing interests, Ramesh was at the receiving end of their wrath instead. While the growth zealots dubbed him as anti-development, the conservationists accused him of not backing intent into action. By his own admission, the rate of environment clearances could only be reduced by about five per cent, from a high of nearly 99.99 per cent in the past. Holding public hearings on controversial Bt Brinjal, saying “no” to bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills, and setting up the Madhav Gadgil Committee on Western Ghats didn’t add-up to conjure an eco-friendly image for the minister. 

This was bound to happen given the precarious balancing act the minister was trapped into, between contradictory pulls and pushes. Green Signals can be easily read as an exercise in self-defence by the then environment minister, but it could also be seen as an unfinished agenda of change that Ramesh had embarked upon. That his short-tenure evoked strong responses stands testimony to his out-of-the-box approach in putting in place a system within the ministry that made choices on the basis of hard facts and information without losing on transparency and accountability, the key anchors of the new approach in decision-making. 

Within a democratic system, trade-off between environment and development is determined by the political economy of growth. No wonder, the environment ministry cannot act at his own behest without taking the chief ministers, the cabinet ministers and the prime minister on board. Quite often, Ramesh had ended-up rubbing the wrong side of his colleagues in other ministries which were entrusted with the task of taking the country high on the growth trajectory. Green Signals is an honest record of a minister negotiating the twists and turns involved in trying to ensure ecological security amidst growth fundamentalism. 

It is clear that Ramesh was not keen on keeping diverse stakeholders, both within and outside the government, in good humour. Instead, he tried to find ways to make high economic growth ecologically sustainable. In doing so, he sought to move away from the binary approach to green clearances for projects to a three-way classification — ‘yes’, ‘yes, but’, and ‘no’. Such an approach warranted a need for acknowledging diverse perspectives and for appreciating good science within the framework of constitutional provisions, such that predictability of outcome and possibility of conflict could be avoided. 

Ramesh was seized of the fact that hard choices by the state will lead to public grievances, for which he played an important role in setting up the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The functioning of NGT indicates that it will take a lot of doing on the part of subsequent governments to “undo” the institutional changes he could bring about in his short but momentous tenure. Conservationists ought to be kind to him because the impacts of his decisions are likely to last longer than his short stint with the environment ministry. 

Green Signals is a rare gesture of honouring the democratic obligation of reporting back to the people about what went behind the “transparent door”, which will go a long way in writing the history of environmental decision-making in the country. 

Green Signals: Ecology, Growth and Democracy in India 
by Jairam Ramesh
Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Extent: 616, Price: Rs. 850 

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on June 14, 2015

Capabilitiy should be central to growth

Our world needs more critical thinking and more robust arguments because economic growth has not only been enhancing income inequality but is keeping a large segment of the population deprived of basic education, health care and livelihood opportunities. Conventional economists have been of the view that either growth will percolate to pull poor out of poverty or redistribution of wealth will extend much-needed basic education and health care to the deprived.

Despite a growing consensus that neither of the two options has favored the poor thus far, the widespread use of economic achievements as a measure of country's progress continues to persist. How have the world’s poor been surviving on a daily basis is least of its concerns! In recent memory, the Sarkozy Commission has attempted to question the economic growth paradigm. It found that the benefits of increased wealth do not reach the poor because these are first usurped by the elites. Redistribution at best remains a good intent!

Citing the case of Vasanti, who was physically and economically abused by her alcoholic husband, Martha Nussbaum argues that only by creating and strengthening the capabilities of the poor can their dignity and self-respect be restored. With support from the Self-Employed Women's Organisation (SEWA) in Ahmedabad, Vasanti not only realized her potential but could put the same to effective use in discovering a dignified existence. Ascertaining what is a person ‘able to do and to be’ holds the key to understanding the Capability Approach, the alternate model to assess human development that Nussbaum has been working for over two decades.

Capability as a means of progress has been central to all cultures. Development (growth) as a normative concept, on the other hand, undermines capabilities and hence human dignity. For Nussbaum, it is people who matter ultimately; profits are only instrumental means to human lives. Human development must do justice for both humans and non-humans, enabling people to live full and creative lives. In an era of perpetual inequity, Nussbaum demonstrates, through narratives of individuals, that our idea of development ought to focus on the lives of the individuals and the way they actually live....Link

Creating Capabilities
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Harvard University Press, USA
Extent: 237, $22.95

The book of change

It is a story of those incredible nine years, between 1993 and 2012, that empowered 900 million people with wireless connectivity; it is a tale of technology transfer that generated a cascade of new occupations and jobs; and it is a saga of crony capitalism that subsumed five of the ten telecom ministers on charges of corruption. It is an unfinished but absorbing fairy tale of a country coming of age, from one telephone per 165 persons in 1991 to nearly two mobile connections per person in 2012. Cell Phone Nation offers an interdisciplinary analysis on how 'boundary between impossibility and possibility' got blurred and what helped people 'attain that was long denied' to them.

The mobile phone may have provided access to global flows of knowledge and mobilized social movements but it has altered local cultural practices and challenged gender relations in a country that is not only unjust and unequal but immensely complex too. Yet, for every increase of 10 per cent in mobile penetration the State Domestic Product reportedly grows by 1.2 per cent. Mobile phone has become an empowering tool in the hands of millions of Indians who otherwise may not have been part of an accelerating economy.

While providing a comprehensive account of how mobile phones have changed lives, authors Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron do not lose sight of the likely health and ecological implications of radiation emitting mobile towers which have mushroomed across the country's vast landscape. Curiously, the impact of mobile towers on survival of house sparrows and honey bees is anything but shocking. Future generation may have to pay a price for the telecom revolution (and its leftover e-waste) currently underway in the country.

Despite its flip side, mobile phone has been a great equalizer in a country beset with caste and class disparities. But will it alter the well-entrenched hierarchy prevailing in the society or can it surmount physical barriers to transform the power structure? Or, will the power of cheaper mobiles only be used to make sexual harassment and economic crimes easier? The authors raise such compelling questions in a racey narrative that is lucid, edifying and engrossing....Link

Cell Phone Nation 
by Robin Jeffrey and Assa Doron 
Hachette India, New Delhi
293 pages, Rs. 499.

Enigma of inclusive development!

Inclusive development has been differently understood, some consider it as a 'process' while for others it is a 'goal'. On both the accounts, it has remained a puzzle that policymakers and development professionals have been trying to unravel on the assumption that the quality of life in any country improves when, and only when, gross domestic product per capita increases. The monetary surplus thus generated can be capitalized to design social development programs for the poor. Backed by experience of being part of such development programs, Amarjeet Sinha asserts that public distribution system can be reinvented to deliver entitlements to social development for the poor, thus providing opportunities for the poor to develop their fullest human potential.

Enamored by limited success of some of the flagship social development programs, in the areas of nutrition, health care, education and livelihoods, the author pitches his hypothesis of paving a way for inclusive development on the strength of better 'service guarantee' for those who rely on it. Ironically, the strategy for reinventing the country assumes the conditions of the poor and the disadvantaged as 'given' and the onus of transforming their lives squarely resting on improving the performance of the 'system' only. Neither does it factor the legacy of failed institutions nor the unresolved challenges in scaling-up!

At this time when the idea of human development is shifting from the conventional 'social indicators' approach to the 'capability approach', An India For Everyone seems trapped in the hope of turning things around by fine-tuning the system that has thus far failed to deliver. The trouble with such an approach has been that it rarely captures the shape and texture of individual lives, what are people actually able to do and to be? Unless the complexities of human life and human striving are properly understood, social development programs may create an illusion of transformation without tweaking the lives of millions.

An India for Everyone seems first draft of a work-in-progress; its assumptions need to go through the rigour of analysis because development isn't about well-funded social programs - it is about whether people can live in a way 'worthy of human dignity'....Link

An India for Everyone
by Amarjeet Sinha 
Harper Collins, New Delhi
182 pages, Rs 299