JOIN USHuge mineral resources, forest wealth, wide network of rivers, vast animal wealth, long coast line, world’s second most populated nation, world’s third largest pool of scientists and technical manpower, 20 agro ecological regions to produce the world’s largest varieties of food crops, immense professional skill and an impressive GDP growth clocking at 8.5 per cent in consecutive years have failed to achieve inclusive growth. India is home to more than 380 million hungry people. As per CAG report, 40 per cent of India’s 34 million children in the age group of 6-14 are not school going. One third of India’s population do not have clean drinking water. Approximately, 2.4 million Indian children die each year due to measles, diphtheria, diarrhea, malnutrition, water borne infection, etc. According to United Nations Population Fund State Project Co-ordinator, Anuja Gupta nearly 1,600 girls a day and six lakh girls per year are missing at birth in India owing to prenatal sex determination. All these things happen because India has failed to groom the right kind of human material for nation building.
Political inclusion
The major social and economic ailments attribute to India’s inability to achieve political inclusion. People with money and muscles easily win election because political parties give them tickets on the basis of their ability to spend. Mass illiteracy, backwardness, poverty and social divisions boost their prospect. Forty to 50 per cent people which includes the majority of educated people do not cast their votes. When a candidate wins election with black money and muscles, he always tries to get 10 times more than his investment. Political exclusion attributes to India’s most corrupt nation status close to El Salvador and Gautemala and its low human development index. Desperate supreme court bench of Justice S B Sinha and Markandaya Katju expressed “The only way to rid this country of corruption is to hang a few of the accused on the lamp post so that it acts as a deterrent for others”.
Regional imbalance, disproportionate allocation of development funds, financial packages and populism become routine activities of the politicians. Mamta Banerjee’s last rail budget was aimed to woo voters for the forth coming assembly election in West Bengal. Her neighbouring state Orissa is deprived of a fast train facility to India’s financial capital Mumbai for decades.
The recent Commonwealth Game mess is the result of poor human material at the helm. The four year old Budhia Singh from Orissa ran 65 kilometre in 2006 to enter into the Limca Book of record. He is the world’s youngest marathon runner. When Budhia was two and half year old, his hungry mother sold him for Rs 500 to a judo coach Biranchi Das who brought Budhia to fame. After the murder of the coach Biranchi Das, Budhia Singh went into oblivion. Footballer, Ashok Jethy from Cuttack represented Orissa eight times in Santosh trophy. Today in his 40s, Jethy is still unmarried and is searching for a job. Ali Sayeed, 68 came to Delhi from Gorakhpur in UP to see the India Pakistan World Cup hockey final in Delhi in 2010. After repeated requests he could not get an entry pass to see the final. Sayeed played for India as left out in 1964 hockey Olympic final. India beat Pakistan by 1-0 in the final. This is India where talents are treated like beasts by ordinary mediocre people at the helm. The result is India’s poor show in Olympic Games and its disqualification in world cup football for decades.
Barring a few private schools the students from a majority of schools cannot stand the present level of competitions. There is an urgent need to centrally monitor classroom activities of government run schools through web camera so that teachers can pay attention to students. If we cannot nurture our children from the primary level we will end up as a nation of cheap unskilled global labours. There is a long question mark on the capacity and integrity of Indian Administrative Services. So a huge exercise is on to sensitise the officials in the services. Unless we instill honesty, discipline, moral and physical courage among our children from school level those administrators will always end up as yes men to political bosses.
During British Raj, British schools groomed Indian students to become compatible yes men as they told the Indian children to sing “behold the mighty Englishman, He rules the Indian small, Because being a meat eater, he is five cubits tall.” India must address its deepening human resources crisis.