Rural Work Programmes

                                                                    Rural Work Programmes

I read in an article that Indian leaders chose early to appease voters, and listed “rural work programmes for livelihood”. I do not know why he shied away from being specific, MGNREGA. The wage rate varies from about 250 rupees to about 350 rupees. Is this a give away? One economist thinks it is. But, I have heard another one saying that those taking MGNREGA as inflation-causing see India through the windows in an airplane! I agree. 

John Maynard Keynes said that in times of real difficulty, like material scarcity, to pay a labourer just to dig a hole and fill it back is not charity; and even if it were to be considered a charity, it is towards conferring dignity upon the work that devolves onto the labourer.Keynes was very particular that this is a temporary issue.

Take India. Poverty in India is endemic. Rural poor are too poor even to stand on the first rung of the development ladder. MGNREGA merely tries to lift one on to the bottom most rung.

The economist who wrote what I started with is retired from a western academic institution and must have taught his ideas. Yes, he had the right to teach how he saw things, but in the whole article there was not any empathy, even lightly felt. He refused to see what happens below his penthouse.

One last thing: He says with contempt writ all over, “[C]ycles for schoolgirls ... laptops for students or gold coins for brides ...” Later, he walks back but without mentioning, “rural work programmes for livelihood”; To quote, “It is true [grudging acknowledgement if ever you wanted a taste of it] that some of the so-called welfare provides valuable relief to recipients: bicycles for girls, toilets, gas-fired cooking stoves, free bus rides for women.” Why not add, “rural work programmes for livelihood” and food subsidy too?

Yes, politicians appease voters (Does he think the US Senators and the House of Representatives do not appease voters?), and schoolgirls when they become adult women have more freedom because they have a bicycle and ride them, if only the roads are not occupied by parked SUVs. When did toilets not become a social good; in your house your throughput is sent to a publicly operated sewerage treatment plants, did you know? Toilets are the first step in that process. If you wish to privatize sanitation, try finding an investor, at an affordable price. Good luck. If you cannot, I may have to shit on the road side.

I have great respect (though I do not claim to understand them except at the most basic level and also not because they won the Nobel Prize) Gunnar and Alva Myrdal, but doing a cut-and-paste job of their thoughts to situations light years away−in 1938, in Sweden and other western nations to India between 1950 to decades in the future, if ever−is the epitome of intellectual dishonesty. Does he think the IMF will look away when the nation becomes more and more indebted to global lenders? Dream on. 

I can go on and on, addressing each issue in the article, but I would spare this old man.

Raghuram Ekambaram