Reflecting on India @75 – Why Gandhi is more relevant than ever

- By R V Bhavani*

In January this year, I got an opportunity to visit Noakhali in Bangladesh. The place is integrally linked to our freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi was there on a Peace Mission for Hindu-Muslim amity from November 1946 to early March 1947, walking from village to village with his message of peace and harmony. Coincidentally, I happened to be in Jayag in the place which now houses the Gandhi Ashram Trust and Gandhi Museum on the very date Gandhiji had spent a night 75 years ago. It was day of reliving history and thinking of our freedom struggle as I walked through the museum. Freedom as we know came with partition of the subcontinent and its aftermath.

Post visit was a time for mulling on how we have fared in these 75 years. We have seen economic growth and development, been through an era of planned development for over half a century, had strategies for attaining self-sufficiency, reducing poverty, inequality, seen the phase of economic liberalization, have functional institutions of democracy and have seen landmark legislations, such as the Right to Information, Food, and Employment Guarantee. Doomsday predictions of famine were warded off with the Green Revolution and progress in agriculture. Operation Flood paved the way for the White Revolution and self-sufficiency in milk production. We now rank 3rd globally in egg and fish production and 8th in meat production. The women’s self-help group (SHG) initiative has helped open up opportunities for their engagement in the public space; the support for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) is helping many small farmers who constitute the majority, get a fair price for their produce.

But has the growth been equitable? Have we been able to ensure access to basic amenities, education and healthcare for all citizens? The answer sadly is, NO. There is huge disparity across regions and communities. This hit me each time I travelled to farmer suicide affected villages in Vidarbha, Maharashtra, and tribal population dominated Koraput in Odisha, as part of my work with rural communities. Wardha in the Vidarbha region is where Sewagram is located. It was from Sewagram that from the mid-1930s onwards, Gandhiji steered India’s freedom struggle. In recent years, Wardha and other districts in the region have been witness to farmer suicides emanating from a crisis in agriculture.

A large segment of our labour force is in the informal sector with no social protection – one only has to recall the desperate attempts of migrant labourers to return home during the pandemic triggered lockdown. The urban rural divide is huge. Disparity in digital connectivity is another dimension of this that was revealed starkly during the recent COVID-19 pandemic when online education became the mode. The World Inequality Report 2022 brought out by World Economic Forum reports that the top 10% of the population accounts for 57 percent share of income and 65 percent share of wealth, and a third of the total wealth is in the hands of the top 1% while the bottom 50 percent account for just 13% income and 6% of wealth! Gender inequality is at a high - share of female labour in income at 18 percent is reported to be among the lowest in the world. The Global Gender Gap Report 2021 ranked India at 140 out of 156 countries in the global gender gap index – a combination of sub-indices of economic participation and opportunity, education attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. (Bangladesh is ranked at 65, Thailand at 79 and China at 107, to give a sense of performance of a few other Asian countries).

We have a National Food Security Act but access to safe and nutritious food for all is still a far cry. The School Midday Meal and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Schemes are two of the largest supplementary nutrition initiatives in the world. There is evidence that states where the food delivery infrastructure functions well, fare better than others in nutrition indicators. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nutrition indicators is to be seen with delivery under the food distribution programmes having been further affected, following long period of closure of schools and ICDS centres. The pandemic also highlighted the need for more investment in public healthcare services. The latest FAO report on Food Security and Nutrition in the World puts the number of undernourished people in India in 2019-21 at 224.3 million, i.e., 16 percent of a 1.39 billion population. The latest round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) reports that around a third of our children under five years of age are underweight and stunted and 67 percent children (6-59 months) are anaemic; Among adults, 57 percent women (15-49 years) are anaemic as are a quarter of men in the same age group. The consequences of different forms of malnutrition on productivity and in perpetuating intergenerational inequity is well established.

Barring the NFHS data that came out in 2021-22, availability of quality data has unfortunately become a casualty in recent years, in the drive to paint a rosy picture of India shining. We do not for instance have recent data on poverty and household consumer expenditure. Many civil society organisations and committed individuals have been doing work at the grassroot level across the country, to make for a more inclusive society. The credibility of the work being done by many such is being questioned as we saw for instance in the case of Father Stan Swamy who was working with tribal communities in Jharkhand. Marginalised communities such as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) continue to be vulnerable and we still have a long way to go to become an inclusive society. Reports of honour killings and caste-based injustice keep appearing in the media. So do instances of atrocities against minority communities, especially Muslims. We seem to be covertly and overtly compromising the integrity of our judicial, legislative and executive institutions as seen in many recent pronouncements and actions. This surely cannot be the free India that Gandhiji and other stalwarts of the freedom struggle fought for.

True development can happen only when people are empowered and aware, can decide their development priorities, demand, and lead the way – this is reinforced the more one sees the situation of deprivation in many pockets even after 75 years of independence. For this to happen, we need effectively functioning Panchayats (not run by Panchayat Patis taking oath in place of their wives, as was reported recently in Madhya Pradesh!) and planning from below. The Constitution 73rd Amendment Act 1992 provides for devolution of funds to Panchayats for overall development spanning the gamut of economic and social welfare activities including agriculture and allied sectors, education, health, and management of resources. The COVID pandemic experience has reinforced the interconnectedness of humanity and highlighted the effectiveness of shorter value chains, in the face of restrictions on transport and travel, and is in line with this. Promoting local production for local consumption and reducing food miles is also relevant for sustainable food systems and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These are in line with dignity of all human beings and vibrant local village economies that were central to Gandhiji’s vision of Swaraj. It is imperative that we revisit, reflect on, and practice Gandhian thought and values of respect, ethics, simplicity, integrity, and cooperation, so that every Indian can enjoy the fruits of freedom and feel proud of being Indian.

* R V Bhavani is a rural development professional with over two decades of experience on food and nutrition security issues. | Email: bhavani9@iitbombay.org