Bharat Bhagya Vidhata

Painting by Abanindranath Tagore

Bharat Bhagya Vidhata


From the ramparts of the Red Fort on a drizzly August 15th 2009, The Prime Minister spoke of returning, at the earliest, to a 9% GDP growth trajectory. This, despite the drought that is upon us, along with a host of economic and security issues, looking a lot tougher than they ever have in the past.

However, this is not misplaced optimism or empty promise. A renewed high growth path
will come to pass soon enough, certainly before Shri Manmohan Singh’s 2nd term as PM is over.

But the question raised in countless minds is, how it will really change things. How is this any different from talk of “Shining India” that apparently saw the demise of NDA rule, in preference for the aam aadmi favouring Congress Party and its UPA compatriots. And now, they too are talking of GDP numbers that don’t touch the lives of the masses!

How does this high GDP growth help the 60% of Indians that live in rural India? Or are they to be perpetually ignored beyond sops, lip service, and crocodile teary emotion at election time?

Well, consider the facts for a moment. This 60% figure is already down, over time, from an estimated 80%. Also consider that the contribution of this 60% to the economy is now just 23%, the figure attributed to agriculture, again down from some 80% in the first decade after independence.

Also contemplate for a moment that the world’s most successful agricultural country, the US, has only 5% of its population remaindered on the land farming up a mountain of food, using a great deal of mechanisation and science. The other 95% of Americans are now urban, as they well ought to be, this being the 21st century and not the 19th where the greatest aspiration of man is “the pursuit of happiness” and not mere survival.

This in turn implies that India, currently the second fastest growing large economy in the world, will also see a relentless urbanisation of its population looking for higher yielding opportunities. The migration from countryside to the city is a well trodden path all over the developed world; and it has been combined with an upgrading of rural facilities to considerably narrow the gap between the two.

The age old peasant-farming, bracketed by rain, flood, drought and pestilence, is a thing of the past in the developed world. And while it still ravages India and China, much as it did ancient Egypt; it is now a matter of learned speculation as to how much longer this state of affairs will obtain, even in the most recalcitrant parts of Africa; let alone prevail there, or anywhere else.

Things are changing rapidly, in decades, instead of centuries, in a small inter-connected world. So, though it may not be readily apparent in 2009, but in 2019, instead of necessarily streaming into the four or six Indian metro cities grown to eight by then, the migrating peasantry may well go to the fast growing tier II and tier III cities become sizeable places in their own vicinities instead.

The growth of some 30 in the one category, and over 200 in the other, is already underway now, changing many things in the understanding of business and industry in India Inc., well distributed natural entrepots that they are, and that too at quite a clip.

The process of migration will also accelerate, as the benefits of primary and secondary education penetration accrue to the masses; and will also make the livelihoods of those fewer who remain on the land far more viable. It will, again on the basis of the evidence, slow population growth, because urban families tend to be much smaller as aspirations are higher in the city.

Besides, if the past 62 years are any indicator, jobs as labourers; as artisans, as security guards; as servants; but in the cities, are preferred to rooting about in the meagre opportunities afforded in the villages. For the landless, for the low caste and downtrodden, for dirt farmers with inadequate and unviable holdings, and no resources to extract a livelihood from them - the city and its slums and daily wages are clear and away preferable!

The message is loud and clear. Farming has to change, to become altogether more productive, value-added, much less wasteful; more remunerative, not just in the starring states of Punjab and Haryana, but in all 28 states. This is how the rest of the developed world has dealt with the issue, and we will have to do likewise.

In ten years time, the percentage of India’s people still living on the land will be lower than it is today, and then lower still as the years roll on, till an optimum level and balance
is reached between the absorption capacities in the cities, and modern farming needs on a mechanised, irrigated, scientific basis - in the villages.

But to make all this possible, we need to prosper and keep on prospering. Our stock markets have to double and double again, FDI has to pour in, and many other things in the real economy have to grow in a geometric progression alongside.

The economy, at a rate of growth of 9% per annum will, in any case, double in size in a decade. And the stock market, with its futures and options components, with its tendency to discount the future, is generally several multiples ahead of the real economy.

In due course, it is conceivable that India Inc. will subsume ageless, timeless rural India, and put paid to this debate once and for all. But certainly, in order to get there, we need to restore ourselves to the high growth path as soon as possible. And, it must be recognised that while a healthy agriculture is necessary to feed our gargantuan population; it is not the best vehicle of economic growth that we can aspire to.

At best, agriculture will account for a percentage point or two of GDP, out of the overall mix, now weighted at over 50% in favour of services, and not industry. So let us understand rural India will not remain a static entity. And when there are only, say, 30% living in the countryside, the country will no longer be regarded as a sum of its villages.

(1,048 words)


17th August 2009
Gautam Mukherjee