August 15, 1947 was a long time ago. The Bible says, “Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” India is not as young as is commonly made out to be. In the absence of Census 2021, anything said about population trends is largely an estimate. Subject to that, the median age is around 29 years. Young, but not that young.
India will also start to age fairly soon. It already has in some states. Someone who is 29 years old now was born in 1995. This is a post-reform generation. This is a generation used to liberalisation and unused to shortages. This is a generation that has visions of Viksit Bharat in 2047.
Someone born in 1947 is 77 or 78 today. Such a midnight’s child should be called old. Growing up in the decades of shortage in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and even ’80s, these individuals had dreams for India. If they look at India in 2024, the clichéd metaphor will be that of the half-empty and half-full glass. A lot has been accomplished since 1947, but a lot remains to be accomplished.
But have you ever looked at a half-empty and half-full glass? The perspective depends a lot on where the glass is compared to your line of vision. If you hold the glass up, above your line of vision, it will seem to be more full than empty. But if you hold the glass below your line of vision, it will seem to be more empty than full. Since they remember what India used to be like, the older generation will probably regard the glass as more full than empty. But since they don’t know what India was like in 1947, the younger generation will probably regard the glass as more empty than full.
August 15, 1947 seems like a long time ago. The world was different and India was different. Let’s focus on economy-related aspects, ignoring the immediate trauma of partition. Few people remember Minoo Masani (1905-98) now. He was an influential politician, though his ideology changed over time. Incidentally, in the Constituent Assembly, he argued for a uniform civil code. Data didn’t exist in 1947. Not for what we understand as India today. Such data that existed were for parts of India that were directly under British rule, not the princely states.
Today, if we want government data, we will probably look towards the Economic Survey. There was no Economic Survey then. Publishing the Economic Survey is not a constitutional requirement. It started as an executive decision and a ‘white paper’ started to be included in the budget papers from 1950-51. That white paper eventually became an independent Economic Survey.
Of course, the Survey isn’t a primary source of data; it is a secondary source. It collates and reports data collected elsewhere within government. But in 1947, ‘elsewhere within government’ didn’t exist. Statistical systems evolved only in the 1950s. In April 1951, the first report of the National Income Committee highlighted problems with the statistical system. The Central Statistical Office or CSO and the National Sample Survey Office or NSSO were in their formative years. The Collection of Statistics Act would be passed in 1953. For 1947 we had little information.
But in 1947, Minoo Masani published a slim book directed at children. It was called Our India and was deeply socialist in tone, which was the default template then. I read it when I was still very young and it left a deep impression on me. Whatever be the content, I think the style is a model for all those who write for the young. In the preface to this book, he said, “Statistics of Indian life are so scanty and scrappy that reliance on them is bound to endanger one’s conclusions.”
With that caveat, what did Minoo Masani tell us? “Learned professors in our universities have estimated that the ordinary peasant in our country with a wife and three children has to live along with his family on much less than Rs 27 a month, which is the average income for all kinds of Indians rolled into one… If, for instance, a baby brother or sister were to be born in your home—don’t mention this to your mother or father, it’ll only hurt their feelings, because grown-ups are like that!—the little baby, sad to say, is due to die at the age of 27.” A per capita income of Rs 27 per month and a life expectancy of 27 years.
In the absence of Census 2021, we don’t exactly know what the life expectancy is today. Extrapolations are based on Census 2011. But life expectancy should be something like 71 years, compared to 27 years at the time of independence. Because of inflation issues, I will not give per capita income figures. We know there has been a vast improvement.
That life expectancy of 27 years was for 1947. In 1951, the life expectancy increased to 32 years. There are also literacy numbers from the Census of 1941, though the geographical definition of India in 1941 was different from that of India today. (The 1941 data included Pakistan.) The literacy rate was 16.1 percent.
By 1951, we had a slightly better idea of what it was like to be an average Indian. In the Census of 1951, with India geographically defined as it is now, the literacy rate was 16.7 percent. Methodologically, these literacy rates are not comparable with literacy rates in the censuses after 1991. Definitions have changed. Before 1991, in computing literacy rates, the denominator was the total population. The figures were crude literacy rates.
Post-1991, the ratio is worked out for the population that is 7 years or more in age. That is, post-1991, the figures are net literacy rates. If the net literacy rate is computed for 1951, with the population that is 5 years or more in age used in the denominator, the figure becomes 18.3 percent. What that qualification, and remembering that we don’t have Census 2021, India’s literacy rate is around 78 percent now and the infant mortality rate or IMR is 26 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In 1951, the IMR was 146.
What kind of glass are you looking at around the time of independence day? Depends on your perspective. We need to look forward. No one drives with an eye on the rear-view mirror, but an occasional glance is needed.
(bibek.debroy@gov.in)
(Views are personal)
Bibek Debroy
Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister
