In the post world war II era ,industrial production & world wide use of DDT as an insecticide picked up.It was
thought that this molecule was a boon for the civilization & with its help we could control population of many insects and pests . In India the malaria eradication programme started in 1953 & huge quantities of DDT were used to bring down mosquito population . The results were dramatic. By 1970 there was a reduction in incidence of malaria by more than 90% . Even WHO thought that with the help of organochlorines there could be near total eradication of malaria . Nothing could have been farther from truth than this belief.
Organochlorines like DDT are persistent & toxic . They also cause reduction of bird population drastically . Birds are natural predators of insects . So the long term effect of use of DDT was an increase in mosquito population rather than a decline . Moreover the now enhanced mosquito population was resistant to DDT . Apart from this , compounds like DDT show biomagnification . These toxic molecules accumulate in human body and harm our liver,nervous system etc.Incidentally Indian population is one of those populations which have highest DDT deposition in the body . We lagged behind the developed nations in banning use of DDT by more than ten years . We came to realize the harmful effects of DDT only when the harm was already done . In fact in India politicians like Sharad Pawar have still not learnt the lesson . He is in favour of using toxic chemicals like endosulfan & with great reluctance has agreed to phase-out the use of endosulfan in 11 years.
A grand drama analogous to the " DDT show " is now being played in " The Indian theater " under the name of "Liberalization " . The short term effects of liberalization were dramatic . It gave tremendous boost to the Indian economy & affluence percolated to the middle classes . This newly acquired affluence is acting as an opiate for the Indian middle class so that they are gradually becoming insensitive to the plight of the poor who constitute more than half of our population .
The long term effects of policies of Manmohan Singh & his cronies like Montek Singh Ahluwalia are only now beginning to appear . The so called " Liberalization " has made the poor even poorer &has increased the chasm between the haves & have-nots . The price rise of essential commodities & the double digit inflation are an outcome of these policies . The large number of unprecedented suicides by farmers is a direct effect of the so called liberalization policies . Amartya Sen's work has established that the large number of deaths in the "Great Bengal famine (1943) " were not due to shortage of food but they were due to wrong economic policies and bad management by the government . Same can be said about the Indian government vis-a-vis the farmer suicides . On one hand millions of tons of grain is rotting due to negligence and lack of proper storage space & on the other hand the Indian government is not prepared to distribute free grains to the starving poor, in spite of the Supreme court's suggestion to do so . The life of middle class people,poor people & peasants is going to be more and more difficult in India , thanks to Manmohan-Montek duo .
Let us briefly see the effect of liberalization on the education scene . In Indira Gandhi's socialistic regime education up to postgraduate level was quite cheap and affordable . Even a poor person with a dint of hard work could aspire and could receive higher education . Thousands & thousands of poor boys and girls who could become Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, Teachers,Chartered accountants.........stand testimony for this . Post liberalization the thinking is that any grant to educational institutes is a largesse which should be minimized as far as possible and the educational institutes should become self sustaining and self financing . The net result was a tremendous rise in educational fee .
Today on an average the so called free seat students in a government college has to shell out thousands of rupees annually as fee . For Medical & Engineering students it is Rs.400000 to 50000 annually . Add other expenses like dress, food, transportation etc. & the figure goes to 100000 Rs. per year . In other words the system has barred the children from lower middle class and poor class from becoming Doctors & Engineers. And this is the scene in govt. colleges . I am not discussing the education economics of the private Medical & Engineering colleges which are special domains of the rich,for the rich & by the rich .In the post liberalization India the sons of babus, peons, primary teachers, factory workers or marginal peasants are doomed to remain poor . Is that fair?
deepak
I do not agree.No liberization or Socialism has its ill effects too. Infact, in the long run, Socialism has led to poor development and exploitation. Have we not seen this in the past?Not once, but many times.Bengal is a recent example!!
ReplyDeleteI think, Exploitation in the long run is inevitable; but Liberization is just the lesser of the two evils. Infact, Liberization drives competition. This combined with "survival of the fittest" results in self-development in the long run.