Politics of poverty

The announcement by the Planning Commission that poverty in India shrank from 37.2 per cent in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12 has evoked angry criticism rather than celebratory cheers. Not only do the figures seem fudged but also, the entire exercise appears politically motivated. The Planning Commission used a methodology prescribed by the Suresh Tendulkar Committee that was known to shrink poverty figures.

The latter’s fixing of the poverty line at a daily consumption expenditure of Rs 22.42 in rural areas and Rs 28.65 in urban areas was widely rejected as too low, unrealistic and insensitive to the realities on the ground. It was seen as a methodology aimed at shrinking the number of poor, which would enable the government to show that millions were lifted out of poverty on its watch. Even the government subsequently conceded the need to revise the methodology and to this end set up the Rangarajan Committee. Surely it could have waited a year for the Rangarajan Committee to make its recommendations before coming out with its poverty assessment. It did not. The unseemly haste to come out with these figures has to do with upcoming general elections.

It is hard to dispel the feeling that the Planning Commission’s latest assessment of poverty is a political exercise aimed at impressing the voter rather than an attempt at gathering data for assessing the health of the economy. The political message in the report is hard to miss. In its conclusion it points out that “the rate of decline in the poverty ratio during the most recent seven-year period -- 2004-05 to 2011-12 -- was about three times of that experienced in the 11-year period between 1993-94 and 2004-05.” The 2004-05 to 2011-12 period coincides with the first eight years of UPA rule at the Centre, while the latter part of the earlier period of comparison roughly coincides with non-Congress, BJP-led governments. It sends out a message to voters that it is during Congress-led UPA rule that the most effective assault on poverty has been made.

The Planning Commission’s figures on poverty will no doubt come in handy for the UPA’s spin masters in an election year. Whether they will impress the voter is another matter. After all, the poor don’t need the Planning Commission to tell them they are poor or not. They know the reality of their daily fight for survival. And that will count on polling day.