Why UP remains a backward State?
Reference : http://www.agricultureinformation.com/mag/2006/08/why-up-remains-a-backward-state/
UP is always in the news. For all its political importance. But the State is known for its extreme complexity in all its many dimensions, political complexity, political instability and the big number MPs who make up the composition of the Central Government in all desirable and undesirable ways!
UP’s economic and social backwardness is very galling, to say the least! By any parameters of development UP is a laggard. Of course other bimaru States, Bihar, MP and Rajasthan, Orissa and W.Bengal also come to the fore when it comes to count the very basic growth indicators. The Human Development Index is very poor for these States. If you keep out all the mass-level leaders from the levers of power as the Sonia Gandhi-dictated policy now provides, there can’t be any sustainable solution to the problems at the ground level. The State level politics, democratic politics, must reflect the State level realities. We mean the political socio-economic realities. If it doesn’t, then what you will be having is either the vice-like grip of the extremist politics is one kind or other. The W.Bengal Leftists, the CPI (M) leftists and their allies are relying on some worn-out thesis of land reforms etc. Only now Mr.Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee gives some hope.
The other type of extremist politics we witness is in TN where the two Dravidian parties indulge. In the absence of any valid economic or social vision the only politics they have learnt is that of revenge politics.
In either case the extremist politics, also in Kerala and in the other extreme in the more extreme rightwing politics of Mr.Modi in Gujarat we see the modern enlightened economic and social and secular policies are easy to give up and it is equally easy to go for some type pf extremism or hype that keeps the gullible poor in thrall of their rabble rouser Chief Ministers!
So, now we are back in UP. What is happening in UP? Nothing, we can’t say but not enough to make a critical dent in its socio-economic backwardness. It is said by an expert that if the UP is allowed to develop on the present pace, it would take at least 100 years for the State to reach the present state of Kerala and TN in critical socio-economic indicators! It is a tiresome job to read all the statistics about UP.A World Bank study, a Profile and Diagnostic of Poverty in Uttar Pradesh makes for chilling reading. Eastern and Southern UP is identified the poorers of the poor as those who had suffered idiosyncratic shocks such as long-term and costly illnesses. So many losses for the families. So much destitution! The casual labour is still so abundant and so prone to all sorts of deprivation, even “foraging and begging”! Poor women low caste status are prone to destitution more than other categories. Poverty incidence for agriculture labour is as high as 50-60%, school evolvement 40%, poorest 20% get only 4% electricity.
Even petty land-ownership is seen as social security and prestige. In 1933/34, nearly two thirds of rural households were seen as dependent on earnings from casual labour. Yes, labour migration is very strong in some regions, more so the seasonal migration. Rural poverty is increasingly associated with casual labour in agriculture and in the non-farm sector. “Land is the most crucial asset for the rural poor. Poverty falls as landownership rises.” So, the education weakness of the Northern States, so bad in UP, very bad in Bihar and MP and other states there. Only down South you see the competition. In UP, we have a new phenomenon of so many State level leaders now asserting to become the Prime Ministers! Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati and others are waiting in the wings. V.P.Singh has come back with a new outfit. More than his outfit, the Jan Morcha, it is his ideas for the new party and a new formation of a Third Force that merits attention as far as UP and the future of India is concerned.
Says V.P.Singh: “The media might think I have made a comeback. I haven’t. I am busy with farmers’ issues. Unless the farmer’s issues are made electorally relevant no mainstream media takes note. So electoral issues have to be linked to critical issues of the farmers.” So, he is leading agitations and what not. More than that it is his personal stature that makes him nationally relevant. When he launched the Mandal in 1989, it was an infant, as he himself says. Now, he wants his Jan Morcha as a multi-party alliance in which he counts Lalu Yadav, Paswan and the Leftists and also even the DMK, though he did not name it.
So, agriculture per se won’t improve unless a whole lot of related issues, like good governance, combating corruption and also politically legitimate ministers at the Centre, Economic growth as such won’t come about.
There are lots of good schemes at present. But there is no politically legitimate leadership to implement them.
V.Isvarmurti – Founder “Agriculture & Industry Survey” . Read more at www.isvarmurti.com
