Will Maya come upto expectation?

By Jagdish Dwivedi

The political social engineering in Uttar Pradesh catapulted the Bahujan Samaj Party in power in India's most populous state. This development has increased the awareness of the different social groups of their leverage in electoral politics. Parties have come up to uphold group interests and capture power directly or through caste alliances. But national issues including the problems of economic and social development have been pushed into the background.

Ms. Mayawati has not done something new. All parties concern themselves primarily with protecting and expanding their vote banks, based on caste and communal groupings. They form coalitions and put up candidates only to secure numerical majorities to defeat the other caste-based candidates.

UP's politics has been a precursor of group-based politics in India. The Muslim League was virtually reborn in the UP elections of 1937, when it fought on the basis of a separate Muslim identity to fight the pluralist nationalism of the Congress. Dalit politics of north India got its main sustenance from the Mandal movement of UP. The BJP's march to power in India started literally by asserting Hindutva at Ayodhya. What happens in UP can indicate what is to expect in the national politics in the years to come.

There are few countries in the world with as much ethnic, religious linguistic and communal diversities as India. With the spread of democracy and education, these diversities found expression in group-identities, conscious of their rights, asserting their claims for political power. Such claims may be essential for the empowerment and the development of those groups. Indeed, many of our deep-rooted social problems cannot be tackled without such groups fighting for these claims.

But they can also fracture national politics by the spread of sub-national interests and the formation of alliances just for gaining dominance and power without confronting the basic problems of economic and social development.

If those problems of development are not solved, the politics based on group-interests would remain confined to politics of conflict as a zero-sum game, when one group gains only at the cost of another. If opportunities are limited and resources are not expanding, when the economy is not growing fast enough, the aspirations of all the groups cannot be met together. Each group looks at others as adversaries.

Caste based politics saps the basis of national harmony and the social fabric disintegrates, creating law and order problems and ineffective governance. They, in turn, bring down economic growth further, investors losing confidence in malfunctioning markets.

That is exactly what has been happening to UP over the recent years. Till about the Eighties, UP's growth performance was similar to-if not better than-the national average. In the Seventies, UP's agriculture and industry grew faster than all-India. The Green Revolution that started first in western UP in wheat and sugarcane spread to the eastern and central regions in the Eighties. UP's industrial growth was also substantially higher than all-India during that period.

All these changed in the Nineties, the decade that was marked by a sharp increase in factional politics. GDP growth in UP between 1991 and 1996 was only about 3.4 per cent a year, when the all-India average was about 6 per cent. UP failed to use the opportunities opened up by economic reforms. Agricultural growth stagnated around 1.7 per cent a year in the state while for India it was about 2.7 per cent. The fall in manufacturing growth rate was more spectacular. It was hardly 2.7 per cent a year, compared to 9.3 per cent in the Eighties.

The performance in social development has not been very impressive in India, especially in the years when the growth of GDP was stagnating at a slightly higher level than the growth of population. However, with the accelerated growth of the Eighties and the Nineties, social development in India picked up significantly.

Poverty kept declining steadily. Literacy, school enrolment, education, primary health care, women's welfare and rural development-all accelerated, although the ground to cover to reach even a moderate level of human development in the country as a whole remained still quite large.

But in UP, the pace of social development was very low even in these years. The populist governments elected by caste and communal alliances could do precious little to bring about the social changes that were promised at the poll platforms.

Development expenditures that averaged to about 70 per cent of public expenditures in UP in 1980-81 and 1990-91 came down to less than 55 per cent in 1998-99, and decelerated further in 2001-06. The real per capita expenditure on rural development, employment and social services as well as what is known as 'human priority areas' such as education, primary healthcare, drinking water, sanitation and nutrition-which was increasing steadily in the previous two decades-actually declined sharply in the Nineties and thereafter.

In spite of all the parties talking for the poor and Dalits, more than 31 per cent of the people in UP lived below the poverty line in 1999-2000, compared to the all-India average of 26 per cent. Of those poor, 35 per cent were from the SC/ST in that year, compared to 32 per cent in 1987-88.

To come out of this malaise, UP needs a radical change in political paradigm that goes beyond factional politics based on caste, community and sectional interests to one based on pluralism, promoting the interests of all the groups through an expansion of opportunities, employment and output. Growth, which has practically disappeared from UP politics, must be brought back to the centre stage.

Law and order must be enforced, irrespective of the sectional affiliation of the criminals. Investment must increase in high-return assets, irrespective of who holds those assets. Social expenditure must expand in areas where they are most needed, irrespective of which community gets the benefits. The rights of all the groups and the vulnerable sections can be protected only in a new order which ensures development of all groups in a sustained manner.

The different social groups, especially those who are vulnerable, may still organise their political parties to press for social development without discrimination and to protect their interests. But then they should combine with other social groups and their parties to bring about social transformation and sustainable development, whose benefits can be enjoyed by all.

There may still have to be a coalition of different groups and parties. But that would be meant for playing a positive-sum game increasing the size of the cake and a larger share for all. It would require a complete political realignment of politics in UP. Until then, we may be seeing only more of the same in the coming years. Will Chief Minister, Ms. Mayawati, truly come up to the expectations of the people? If she fails in her social engineering it will be really catastrophic for the Indian polity. INAV

Strategies for girls' education

Shri A.K. Sengupta

A range of strategies and interventions have been evolved that are designed to improve girls’ participation in education, at building systemic responsiveness, motivating girls and their parents and forging partnerships with community based groups for girls’ education. Efforts are also made to address issues within the classroom to enable a conducive learning environment and monitor progress along key indicators in girls’ education.

While designing programmes for girls’ education, the education administrator addresses both ‘generic’ and ‘specific’ issues. The gender perspective is sought to be integrated in all the programme components and the ‘specific’ interventions such as incentives to offset economic disadvantage, relaxation of norms for tribal areas etc. are contextualized interventions required to address various factors of disadvantage. Intensive and innovative efforts are taken up at the micro-level to retain focus on girls’ education and mobilize women/women’s groups for girls’ education.

Even while an over-all improvement has been noticed, it is necessary to target areas where girls’ education is lagging behind. Towards this end, the Government of India has launched two focused interventions for girls – the National Programme for Education of Girls at Elementary Level (NPEGEL) and the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV). These schemes are targeted to reach out to girls from marginalized social groups in over 3,000 educationally backward blocks in the country where the female rural literacy is below the national average and the gender gap in literacy is above the national average.

The NPEGEL scheme is meant for the educationally backward blocks (EBB) where both girls who are in ‘in’ and ‘out’ of school, are targeted. The out of school girls include never enrolled and drop out girls. In the case of girls in elementary school, the thrust is on girls with low attendance rates and girls with low levels of achievement. Ensuring a positive self image and to eliminate gender bias in the classroom is also in the design of the scheme. According to latest (upto 30.09.07) available data, the reach of NPEGEL includes 3272 block, 40,171 clusters, 35,254 model cluster schools, 25,537 ECCE support, 24,387 additional rooms, 9,67,063 remedial teaching, 1,53,324 bridge courses, 1,85,494 gender sensitization of teachers and 71,46,300 uniforms and other incentives.

To impact on the enrolment and retention scenario, the NPEGEL scheme is a holistic effort to tackle the impediments to girls’ education at the micro level through flexible, decentralised processes and decision making. It is well known that children become vulnerable to leaving school when they are not able to cope with the pace of learning in the class or feel neglected by teachers/peers in class. The scheme stresses the responsibility of teachers to spot such girls and pay special attention to bring them out of their state of vulnerability and prevent them from dropping out. Recognising the need for support services to help girls with responsibilities with regard to fuel, fodder, water, sibling care and paid and unpaid work provisions have been made for incentives that are decided locally. Just as gender sensitive teaching learning materials, introduction of additional subjects like self defence, life skills, legal rights, gender etc. have been provided in the scheme, efforts to ensure a supportive and gender sensitive classroom environment through systematic sensitization and monitoring the classroom is also inbuilt in it.

Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya Scheme

The second major initiative, in the EBBs, is the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) scheme that provides for setting up of residential upper primary schools for girls from SC, ST, OBC & Muslim communities. This scheme targets areas of scattered habitations, where schools are at great distances and are a challenge to the security of girls. This often compels girls to discontinue their education. KGBV addresses this through setting up residential schools, in the block itself.

The KGBV scheme very specifically targets

* Adolescent girls who are unable to go to regular schools.

* Out of school girls in the 10+ age group who are unable to complete primary school

· Younger girls of migratory populations in difficult areas of scattered habitations that do not qualify for primary/upper primary schools.

As the KGBVs specifically targets communities where girls are more disadvantaged, such as SC/ ST, OBC and Muslim minorities, the scheme provides for a minimum reservation of 75% of the seats for girls from SC/ST/OBC and minorities communities and 25% to girls from families that live below the poverty line.

The reach of the KGBV’s include –

· 2180 sanctioned – of these 270 are in EBBs with 20 percent Muslim population

· 1564 KGBVs operational

· Of total enrolment (25% SC, 32% ST, 26% OBC, 5% Muslim and 10% Below Poverty Line).

· About one fourth of the girls enrolled in the EBBs with Muslim concentration are Muslims.

India is deeply committed to Universalization of Elementary Education of satisfactory quality by 2010. Greater focus and efforts are now being made to extend the gains to the "last mile" and to ensure that not only all girls are in school but they also complete the cycle of elementary education with quality education. (PIB)

Need for a resurgent Asia

By Anirudh Prakash

It is time for India to look beyond just east and focus on the whole of Asia as its foreign policy objective. A solution between India and Pakistan on Kashmir is possible if New Delhi steps up its interaction on an institutional basis with all Asian countries. This will create a larger neighbourhood, which in turn can collectively address problems between different countries, should the need arise. Asia has existed geographically, but there has been very little political definition of its geography. Such a reassessment of Asia, by Asians, is becoming necessary in light of international terrorism on the one side and the war against it led by the United States-which incidentally leaves out much of Asia in such a war-on the other.

The reassessment itself is becoming necessary because terrorism has struck roots in Asia, for which Asian countries alone are not responsible. There is no doubt a powerful religious angle to it-Islamic jihad has been all but singularly identified as the irrational motive behind terrorism. But can any one deny that it is the American political interest in West Asia, and economic interest in the Gulf and Central Asia, that is one of the main causes of Islamic terrorism? Or can it be questioned that Afghanistan and Iraq were a direct consequence of Cold War rivalry? The problems in Asia are thus emanating as much from the hyper power's overriding ambition to be the global hegemon as from Asia's own historical issues and regional conflicts. Asia thus needs to develop an Asia-centric view of the world if the march of America has to be stopped.

Just how much of an Asian union is a myth and how much of it is a reality? A very large part of its geographical mass is constituted of the Russian hinterland. Then there are the Central Asian Republics, sitting possibly on the largest reserves of oil and natural gas after the Gulf countries. There is China with economic and political ambitions of its own, just as there are the South-East Asian countries with bourgeoning new economies. There is West Asia (objectionably called the "Middle East", a term that was coined in the old colonial era in which England was at the political centre of the world-the "Far East" has long since turned into South-East Asia, but West Asia, for no rhyme or reason, is still referred to as the "Middle East" by the Western media) which starts east of Suez and extends culturally right up to Iran. And there is South Asia which stretches between Afghanistan and Myanmar but comprises in the main India.

The vast Russian hinterland gives an erroneous impression of the size of the Asian continent, for Russia is necessarily a European country. This leaves us with China and its rim which is South-East Asia; the region of West Asia; the Central Asian Republics; and South Asia, as separate politico-cultural blocks within the Asian continent. But apart from old and historical relations between these Asian blocks, what is common to all of them today is the American presence in their midst. The United States has more than a firm foothold in West Asia through mutually antagonistic Jewish and Arab blocks. Then the US is present in East and South-East Asia: In Taiwan as a bulwark against China, while maintaining a significant access to both Japan and South Korea. The US is being more than averagely influential in the Philippines and Indonesia. In South Asia, the US has Pakistan as its "client state", and is now aiming at accessing the Central Asian Republics through Afghanistan.

In other words, America has significant economic interest and sizeable political presence in Asia. The United States is also the single-largest base of the military-industrial complex that, while making it militarily the most powerful nation on earth, has also provided it with the political ambition of being the dominant force in the affairs of other countries or nations in the interest of-and this is a refined irony-"world peace". In short, with its military and economic might, America is today the vital factor behind socio-political stability or instability in large parts of the world that includes South America as well as Africa. Its great power has led to its description by many as the global hegemon. And hegemon is as hegemon does-America has, post-World War II, been guided solely by self-interest in its blatant exercise of power.

It is such gunboat diplomacy in various parts of the world that is behind much of the friction that one witnesses today. It is in the interest of the military-industrial complex in America to play one political block against the other so as to keep its own economy in health. In other words, the US is scaling newer heights of "progress" at the cost of the people in large parts of the world. It is against this wanton exertion of unbridled influence that Senator John Fulbright had warned against in his extraordinary book, The Arrogance of Power.

Henry Fairlie, in his column 'Letter from America', wrote in the May 1968 issue of Encounter the following assessment of Senator Fulbright's world view, which is being quoted for its profound relevance even today: "

* War is nasty, and has psychological origins, which we do not yet understand;

* The United States is very powerful and therefore has a special responsibility to adjust its policies to the psychology of other nations;

* It has a special responsibility to understand the psychology of today's revolutions;

* These responsibilities are heightened because of its own peculiar history, the unique example which it was intended to set in the world;

* These heightened responsibilities mean that it should avoid the temptation to which other great powers have fallen victim;

* These temptations may conveniently be summarised as the arrogance of power." This was said in the context of US's involvement in Vietnam. It can be said even today.

A resurgent Asia is the need of the hour. It is needed for Asian as much as world peace, since it is clear that the US alone cannot achieve such a laudable objective through its untiring efforts. INAV