“Anything that makes the world more humane and more rational is progress; that's the only measuring stick we can apply to it.”
W. Lippmann
“जो कुछ भी इस विश्व को अघिक मानवीय और विवेकशील बनाता है उसे प्रगति कहते हैं; और केवल यही मापदंड हम इसके लिये अपना सकते हैं।”
डब्ल्यू. लिपमैन
The “Levels and Trends in Child Mortality” report was released recently by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNIGME). UNIGME (United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation) is led by UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, and UN Population Division. The report is published annually with data from 195 countries.
India has achieved a 70 per cent decline in the under-five mortality rate and a 61 per cent decline in the neonatal mortality rate. This positions India among the top performers globally. The reduction in stillbirths is also noteworthy, with a 60.4 per cent decrease compared to a global reduction of 37 per cent. India ranks seventh among countries with the highest reduction in stillbirths.
The improvements in child mortality are attributed to enhanced health coverage and infrastructure. Key initiatives include the establishment of maternity waiting homes and newborn care units. These facilities ensure better access to healthcare services for mothers and infants. The government has also focused on training skilled birth attendants, including midwives and community health workers.
The Ayushman Bharat scheme plays important role in these achievements. It is the world’s largest health insurance scheme, providing nearly US$5500 annual coverage per family. This scheme aims to deliver quality healthcare without financial burden. It ensures free deliveries, medications, and diagnostic support for pregnant women and infants.
India has invested in data systems and digital surveillance to monitor maternal and child health indicators. Continuous improvements in data collection support evidence-based decision-making. This strategic approach aids in identifying areas needing attention and resources.
Despite these achievements, challenges remain. In 2023, an estimated 4.8 million children died before age five, including 2.3 million newborns. Many of these deaths are preventable and linked to unequal access to healthcare. Factors such as socio-economic status and living conditions affect children’s survival rates.
Back in 1928, John Maynard Keynes spoke of the “economic possibilities of our grandchildren”. Industrial progress, he said, was a “soiled creed, black with coal dust and gunpowder”; yet he proposed that if capital equipment continued to grow at 2% a year and technical efficiency at 1%, “the standard of life in progressive countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as it is today.” He concluded thus that the “economic problem” — the problem of having to meet basic necessities — “would be solved… within a hundred years.” In this state of “economic bliss”, 15 hours of work a week would suffice, that too because “we have been trained too long to strive and not enjoy”. Beyond that, the “age of leisure” would be a time, in his biographer’s words, “when the spontaneous, joyful attitude to life now confined to artists and free spirits was diffused throughout society as a whole.”
Fast forward 100 years. Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi heralded the “dawn of the AI age”, noting that AI will create more jobs than it destroys, with unprecedented opportunities for enhanced productivity and innovation. Indeed, Bill Gates has gone so far as to portend a three-day workweek. But with up to 23% of the working population possibly facing the axe in India by 2040 according to the NITI Aayog, rising to 69% in the World Bank’s estimate, the average worker would remain circumspect despite such rosy predictions. Indeed up-skilling and re-skilling are now strategic imperatives for individuals, firms and governments to stave off impending unemployment.
So is AI the route to joblessness or joyfulness? Much would depend on the choices we make. Technological de-employment is not a new phenomenon, though this time AI is entering cognitive and not only blue-collar work. Agricultural and textile workers became redundant with mechanisation and factory automation in the 19th century and, later, as robots were introduced to assembly lines, electrical, electronics, computers, appliances and transport industries, many were left by the wayside. While living standards and the quality of life increased globally with a broad, though still imperfect, democratisation of basic necessities, debates on the future of work have not adhered to Keynes’s prophecy. The benefits of productivity gains have neither been spread evenly nor have they allowed us to become “free spirits”. Rather, as the economists, Robert and Edward Skidelsky, noted, they have generated a competitive engine of consumption-led growth fuelled by the insatiability of material desires that do not improve our well-being or make us happier in any real sense beyond a limit. Some work more to accumulate and consume more, others to make ends meet given the unequal distribution of productivity gains. Only a few find meaning in what they do. As a result, average working hours have stagnated or increased globally since the 1980s. The economic growth story makes eminent sense for those without basic necessities, but for others, the Skidelskys noted, we are up against a “dream of… riches without end”, a “Frankenstein’s monster that [has] now programmed the game of progress according to its own insane logic”. The colloquial ‘rat race’ has led many — ethicists, spiritualists and environmentalists alike — to question the moral underpinnings of the unchecked economic growth story. Keynes seemingly underestimated one important factor: the acquisitiveness of human nature.
The coming AI revolution will reanimate these questions with urgency. While it is too early to determine the precise implications of the rollout of AI, it will undoubtedly be a defining trend. With the allocation of over Rs 10,000 crore for the India-AI Mission and estimates that the AI industry can contribute up to $1.5 trillion to India’s GDP by 2030, AI adoption in sectors such as agriculture, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, energy and healthcare is already gathering steam. The potential enhanced economic output thus made possible by AI puts to us a key choice: should the gains be distributed to raise the floor universally or deepen wealth inequality and employment insecurity? While some evidence from the OECD indicates that ‘low performers’ at work stand to benefit from the use of AI training to mimic ‘high performers’, the International Monetary Fund predicts that of the 40% of jobs in emerging markets that will have a high exposure to AI, half will replace and not complement existing workers. If the past is any measure, the natural movement of economic forces will likely exacerbate the distribution of productivity gains amidst already strained levels of inequality. Tellingly, in September last year, the International Labour Organization warned of reduced labour income share amidst productivity increases led by AI and other automation-based advancements across 36 countries over the past two decades.
From the proposal for a 3.5 day workweek by the J.P. Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, to the call by the L&T chairperson, S.N. Subrahmanyan, for a 90-hour workweek, we must decide how we apportion the fruits of automation. Keynes himself had hoped that technology would allow us to produce what we need at a fraction of the labour — the point was to free up time for the true, non-economic ends of life. Whether we see work instrumentally — simply as a means for sustenance and wages — or as an expression of our productive energies to give meaning to our existence, the disruptive effects of these technological changes deserve careful attention. In threatening to make human labour redundant, they can either release us from the clutches of economic necessity or push us into its arms. For the fortunate, recovering the lost art of leisure, to know what to do with ourselves outside of employment, will take some time. For others, while upskilling would be imperative, securing a just distribution of the economic gains made possible by automation will be critical. Else, we would face the prospect of a leisurely ‘India’ and a toiling ‘Bharat’.
These questions are still some distance away. India’s growth story has serious obstacles to cross with 129 million Indians in extreme poverty and 55% dependent on the State for free foodgrains. Yet, they are coming.
Raag Yadava is a lawyer and an academic
Source: Telegraph, 1/04/25
Adivasis in Jharkhand and the larger Chhotanagpur region will welcome the new year and the spring season with the Sarhul festival on Tuesday.
Sal trees (Shorea robusta) are venerated in Adivasi tradition. They are seen as the abode of Sarna Maa, the deity protecting the village from inclement natural forces.
Sarhul, literally “worship of the Sal tree”, is among the most revered Adivasi festivals. It is rooted in nature worship and celebrates the symbolic union of the Sun and the Earth. A male priest from the village (pahan) plays the role of the Sun, while his wife (pahen) becomes the Earth. Priest Bandhan Tigga told The Indian Express that this union is key to all life on Earth, which depends on the coming together of the Sun’s rays and the soil (Earth).
Sarhul can thus be seen as a celebration of the cycle of life itself. Only after the rituals are completed do Adivasi folk begin ploughing their fields, sowing their crop, or entering the forest to gather produce.
The main rituals happen on day two of the three-day festival at Sarna Sthals. These communally protected “sacred groves” can be found near villages across Chhotanagpur, which includes Jharkhand, parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Bihar.
In the lead up, homes and Sarna Sthals are lined with triangular, red and white Sarna flags. On the first day of Sarhul, the village’s pahan, who observes a rigorous fast, fetches water for the ceremonies, houses and Sarna Sthals are cleaned, and Sal flowers gathered for rituals.
On the next day, the main rituals take place at the Sarna Sthal. The deity is presented with Sal flowers, and a rooster is sacrificed. Villagers seek prosperity, safety, and a good harvest. Holy water is then sprinkled across the village, with performances of traditional songs and dances such as Jadur, Gena and Por Jadur. Later, young men head to nearby ponds and rivers and participate in ceremonial fishing and crab-catching to gather food for the ceremonial feast.
The final day is marked by a grand community feast, in which people share handia (rice beer) and enjoy a variety of delicacies. The festival ends with the pahan’s blessings and the villagers praying.
Sarhul has been celebrated by tribes such as the Oraon, Munda, Santal, Khadia, and Ho, with unique names for the festival and particular ways of celebrations.
Anthropologist Sarat Chandra Roy, in his seminal work Oraon Religion and Customs (1928), observed that over time, Sarhul evolved from being a hunting-centred tradition to one that revolves around agricultural processes. This, he said, reflected the evolving lifestyle of Adivasis in Chhotanagpur.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, when tribes such as the Munda, Oraon, and Santal were sent to faraway places as indentured labour, Sarhul traveled with them. Today, the festival is celebrated in locations ranging from the tea gardens of Assam to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.
In the 1960s, Adivasi leader Baba Karthik Oraon, who advocated for social justice and the preservation of tribal culture, began a Sarhul procession from Hatma to the Siram Toli Sarna Sthal in Ranchi.
In the past 60 years, festive processions have emerged as a crucial part of Sarhul, with the Siram Toli site becoming a major point of convergence for processions. This has also made Sarhul increasingly political, and an occasion to assert the Adivasi identity.
It also comes at a time when some tribes have sought to claim their distinctiveness from Hinduism. Adivasis following the Sarna faith have demanded the inclusion of a Sarna religion column in the caste census of India in the last 20 years. Several Adivasi groups affiliated with the RSS have, however, argued that Adivasis are part of Hinduism.
Geeta Shree Oraon, national women’s president of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, said the slogan ‘Sarna-Sanatani Ek Hai’ (sarna and sanatanis are one) was once given by Hindu groups to emphasise common identities.
Written by Shubham Tigga
Source: Indian Express, 1/04/25