The bugles have been sounded and the drumbeats of campaign rhetoric are set to echo across India’s festival of democracy. Election campaigns are essentially partisan interpretations of maladies and manifestos proffer pious promises. The issues which deserve debate and a contest of competitive ideas are often waylaid by emotive issues.
On the face of it, India is at the cusp of emerging from a developing economy to a developed economy. It is the fifth largest and the fastest growing economy headed towards the $10-trillion GDP goal by the end of the decade.
The India Story is constantly evolving and is located between macro perspectives and micro details. The divergence of incomes and prosperity is visible in the political geography of India’s economy. It is useful to remember that the macro perspective fogs the micro issues which haunt and daunt the progress of this journey towards the ideal of Viksit Bharat.
Here are a few issues which merit space in manifestos, which parties contesting for the mandate must debate.
Primary education: At the dawn of the new millennium, demographers and authors of the BRICs Report prophesied the potential of a demographic dividend. Harvest of the dividend depends on investment in human capital. How equipped are the youth to leverage opportunities in a global economy propelled by technology? The latest ASER report by Pratham looked at the foundational skills of 14 to 18 year olds. It showed that one of four among this group cannot read Class II texts fluently in their regional language and over half struggle with division of 3 digits by 1 digit. For six decades, India’s governments have promised and failed to invest 6 percent of GDP in education. Certainly, technology—especially new ideas based on platforms and AI tutors—could help. Can the parties present solutions?
Jobs, skilling and the AI factor: The government has presented data from multiple sources and angles on employment creation. Yet unemployment is the number one concern in opinion polls. Evidently, there is a gap between need and availability. Last month, over 4.8 million young Indians appeared in an exam for 60,000 posts! IT services, India’s largest white-collar employer, is threatened by the accelerated adoption of generative AI. Huang Jenson of NVidia says “AI will take over coding”. The chairman of Nasscom observed “BPO workers are at the maximum risk from AI.” A report by Accenture suggests 44 percent of working hours in the US could be automated or augmented. Do the parties have a template for an active labour policy, as seen in the Netherlands and Germany? Yes, the Congress has put forth an idea of apprenticeship for graduates and diploma holders. Is it viable? Will the campaign witness a debate on jobs, skilling and leveraging generative AI?
Primary healthcare: India’s Ayushman Bharat programme is one of the largest public healthcare programmes in the world—it has over 300 million enrolled and has covered the cost of 62 million hospitalisations. India’s primary healthcare system though has a long way to go. For sure, it has achieved WHO’s ‘golden finishing line’ of 1 doctor per 834 people, but the availability of allopathic doctors is at 13.08 lakh for 1.4 billion and is skewed towards urban India. Access to primary care is daunted by gaps in personnel and infrastructure. India has over 5.9 lakh inhabited villages served by 1.9 lakh sub centres, 31,000 primary health centres and 6,064 community health centres—the shortfall of specialist doctors at community health centres is 79.5 percent. Do the parties have a prescription?
Agriculture: Farmers are by far the largest political constituency. Agriculture is the largest private sector employer. There is much lather in the political arena about minimum support prices and loan write-offs. This column has observed that India’s agriculture continues to be under licence raj and the curse of imperfect markets is visible in income levels, in the volatility in rural consumption and food price inflation. Over 45 percent of the workforce engaged in agriculture lives off a sixth of the national income—per capita income in rural India is less than half the urban per capita income. It is, clearly, an unsustainable and broken system. Agriculture cannot be a charity cause for politics. Do the parties have a template for liberating the farmer?
Urbanisation: It is well established that urbanisation is a force multiplier for economic growth. Yet urban India and urbanisation is verily the step child of India’s politics. The BJP’s 2014 idea of “100 new cities” morphed into a vague promise of smart cities. Indeed, India is home to over 3,700 Census towns—a curiously unique Indian caricature where habitats are neither urban nor rural. The segment, located at the intersection of rural and urban economy, affords shifting of workforce from farming.
China ramped up urbanisation from 40 percent to 64 percent in the past two decades and the reconfiguration of land for manufacturing and services led to revaluation of land propelled incomes and growth. Given the challenges of rising young population and climate change India must shift from unplanned to designed sustainable urbanisation. Will the urban voters get some attention?
In the global race for growth, comparisons with China are inescapable. China overtook the UK in 2005 to emerge as the 4th largest economy. Its GDP stood at $2.24 trillion, per capita income at $1,750, literacy rate at 91 percent and 45 percent of its workforce was engaged in agriculture. It leveraged global opportunities to expand manufacturing, moved labour from farms to productive sectors and urbanised aggressively.
India will need to do all of this and more as it faces the rising spectre of disruptions—demography, technology and climate change—and uncertainty. Do India’s parties have a plan to enable India to navigate the economic and geopolitical troughs?
Shankkar aiyAr
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
(shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)