Visible progress

The benefits from technology would be all the more for common people, if they participate in the production process.

As I am growing old, I sometimes wonder how much technological change I have experienced in my lifetime spanning over nearly seven decades. Also, what may lie in store in the not-too distant future for my children, not to speak of my grandchildren.

I was born and brought up in a remote village in Bengal with no metal road, no electricity, no telephone -- not even a radio. Car was a marvel -- children would run behind one in awe, if an automobile happened to enter the village. A clock or a bicycle was a luxury only for a few affluent families. Homeopathy was the only medicine available for the poor masses. All child births were performed by local midwives with no formal training. There was no tubewell. People used to suffer chronically from malaria and dysentery. Small pox and cholera would kill quite a few people every year.

There was one primary school housed in a leaky mud house -- four classes managed by only two teachers. The nearest post office and rail station were some 9 km away. There was only one bus in the morning going towards the town and one coming back in the afternoon. People had to travel 2 km on the dusty connecting road to avail the bus.
Now, when I visit the same village, I see a metal road connecting the town to the village.

Rickshaws are available to take you to the bus stop or bring you back from there. Buses are running to and from the town every couple of hours. A two-story big concrete high school building has come up with separate hostels for boys and girls. A number of tubewells are dotting the village. Most child births take place in the government hospital in the  town. A state-aided private clinic dispenses modern medicines to the villagers.

Many families have bicycles with  quite a few owning  scooters and motorbikes. No children would run after your car. A car or a truck is such a common sight. Most families have a college graduate. Malaria is mostly eradicated. Small pox and cholera are unknown diseases. Availability of affordable diagnostic testing and antibiotics has prevented so much suffering and  deaths. People with access to safe water and modern medicines  look a lot healthier than before. Yes, there are still landless labour families with no educated member to supplement income. But the number of such families as a proportion of  total households has definitely gone down.

Perhaps the biggest changes have been brought about by electricity and mobile telephony. Most of the  families, excepting the landless poor, have got electric lights and fans in their homes. The streets are lighted at night. This, apart from making life more comfortable, has made the village much safer from dacoits and snakes.

Providing employment

The availability of power has made possible irrigation with running water pumps and setting up some poultry firms and rice mills, providing employment and greater varieties of food. Computers are bringing the world of knowledge to the fingertips of villagers. Cell phones with built-in clocks have revolutionised the concept of time and communication for the villagers. A phone call to  the town hospital is bringing an ambulance to carry the  pregnant or the critically ill patient within a couple of hours.

People who have gone out of the village in search of jobs have become middle class families who are able to travel in AC-trains and, in emergencies, even in low-fare budget airlines. Those who have relatives abroad are now able to talk to them free over Skype. I am not even talking of people who can afford to have an European or at least a Bangkok vacation -- though their number is growing by leaps and bounds.

What can happen to the lives of people within the next three decades? The biggest progress may take place in the field of medical treatment and  non-conventional sources of energy. There are indications that genes or human brain circuits can be reprogrammed away from cancer or mental illnesses or heart diseases. It is only a matter of time. Solar power, specially from deserts, can provide all the energy the world needs. The new industrial plants would become more  automated with machines replacing  many types of ordinary workers.

The question is: will these developments benefit the common people? The answer is simple. These will not be affordable initially for the masses, specially in the phase of patented monopoly profits. But once the patent expires and more and more competition ensues, the ordinary people  would start to benefit, just like they have gained from the invention of electricity, automobiles, antibiotics, x-rays, computers and mobile telephony.

For instance,  AIDS treatment which used to cost about $30,000 per patient per year some 20 years back now costs less than $100 in sub-Saharan Africa. The benefits from technological progress would be all the more and sooner for common people, if, in addition to being consumers of such new products, they can learn the skills to participate in some ways in the production process.  

(The writer is a former professor of economics at IIM, Calcutta)