India, that is Bharat: A short history of the nation’s names, from the Rig Veda to the Constitution of India

 

There is speculation of an official change in the name of the country from India to Bharat, even though Article 1 of the Constitution uses the two names interchangeably: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.”

So where does the name ‘Bharat’ come from?

The roots of “Bharat”, “Bharata”, or “Bharatvarsha” are traced back to Puranic literature, and to the epic Mahabharata. The Puranas describe Bharata as the land between the “sea in the south and the abode of snow in the north”.

Social scientist Catherine Clémentin-Ojha explained Bharata in the sense of a religious and socio-cultural entity, rather than a political or geographical one. ‘Bharata’ refers to the “supraregional and subcontinental territory where the Brahmanical system of society prevails”, Clémentin-Ojha wrote in her 2014 article, ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names (South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal).

Bharata is also the name of the ancient king of legend who was the ancestor of the Rig Vedic tribe of the Bharatas, and by extension, the progenitor of all peoples of the subcontinent.

Writing in January 1927, Jawaharlal Nehru alluded to the “fundamental unity of India” that has endured from “the remote past”: “a unity of a common faith and culture. India was Bharata, the holy land of the Hindus, and it is not without significance that the great places of Hindu pilgrimage are situated in the four corners of India — the extreme South overlooking Ceylon, the extreme West washed by the Arabian Sea, the East facing the Bay of Bengal and the North in the Himalayas.” (Selected Works Vol. 2)

And what about ‘India’ and ‘Hindustan’?

The name Hindustan is thought to have derived from ‘Hindu’, the Persian cognate form of the Sanskrit ‘Sindhu’ (Indus), which came into currency with the Achaemenid Persian conquest of the Indus valley (northwestern parts of the subcontinent) that begin in the 6th century BC (which was the time of The Buddha in the Gangetic basin).

The Achaemenids used the term to identify the lower Indus basin, and from around the first century of the Christian era, the suffix “stan” came to be used with the name to create “Hindustan”.

The Greeks, who had acquired knowledge of ‘Hind’ from the Achaemenids, transliterated the name as ‘Indus’. By the time the Macedonian king Alexander invaded India in the 3rd century BC, ‘India’ had come to be identified with the region beyond the Indus.

By the time of the early Mughals (16th century), the name ‘Hindustan’ was used to describe the entire Indo-Gangetic plain. Historian Ian J Barrow in his article, ‘From Hindustan to India: Naming Change in Changing Names’ (Journal of South Asian Studies, 2003) wrote that “in the mid-to-late eighteenth century, Hindustan often referred to the territories of the Mughal emperor, which comprised much of South Asia”.

From the late 18th century onwards, British maps increasingly began to use the name ‘India’, and ‘Hindustan’ started to lose its association with all of South Asia. “Part of the appeal of the term India may have been its Graeco-Roman associations, its long history of use in Europe, and its adoption by scientific and bureaucratic organisations such as the Survey of India,” Barrow wrote.

“The adoption of India suggests how colonial nomenclature signalled changes in perspectives and helped to usher in an understanding of the subcontinent as a single, bounded and British political territory,” he added. 

How did ‘Bharat’ and ‘India’ come into the Constitution?

In his monumental ‘Discovery of India’, Nehru referred to “India”, “Bharata” and “Hindustan”: “Often, as I wandered from meeting to meeting, I spoke to my audiences of this India of ours, of Hindustan and of Bharata, the old Sanskrit name derived from the mythical founders of the race.”But when the question of naming India in the Constitution arose, ‘Hindustan’ was dropped, and both ‘Bharat’ and ‘India’ were retained

During the Constituent Assembly debates the “Name and territory of the Union” was taken up for discussion on September 17, 1949. Right from the time the first article was read out as “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”, a division arose among the members. There were quite a few members who were against the use of the name ‘India’, which they saw as being a reminder of the colonial past.Hari Vishnu Kamath suggested that the first article should read, “Bharat, or in the English language, India, shall be and such”. Seth Govind Das, representing the Central Provinces and Berar, proposed: “Bharat known as India also in foreign countries”.

Hargovind Pant, who represented the hill districts of the United Provinces, made it clear that the people of Northern India “wanted Bharatvarsha and nothing else”.

Pant argued: “So far as the word ‘India’ is concerned, the Members seem to have, and really I fail to understand why, some attachment for it. We must know that this name was given to our country by foreigners who, having heard of the riches of this land, were tempted towards it and had robbed us of our freedom in order to acquire the wealth of our country. If we, even then, cling to the word ‘India’, it would only show that we are not ashamed of having this insulting word which has been imposed on us by alien rulers.” None of the suggestions were accepted by the committee. However, as Clémentin-Ojha pointed out in her article, they “illustrated contrasting visions of the budding nation’.

Source: Indian Express, 5/09/23

GoI-UNSDCF 2023-2027

 The Government of India (GoI) and the United Nations (UN) have joined hands to strengthen their commitment towards sustainable development. A significant milestone was achieved with the signing of the Government of India – United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (GoI-UNSDCF) 2023-2027. This partnership aims to accelerate progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), promote gender equality, empower youth, and uphold human rights.

Objectives and Pillars of the GoI-UNSDCF

The primary objective of the GoI-UNSDCF 2023-2027 is to align with the national vision for development and contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. The framework is built upon four strategic pillars: People, Prosperity, Planet, and Participation. These pillars are interlinked and represent the key areas of focus for sustainable development.

Outcome Areas and Focus

Within the GoI-UNSDCF, six outcome areas have been identified to guide the efforts towards sustainable development. These areas include Health and Well-being, Nutrition and Food Security, Quality Education, Economic Growth and Decent Work, Environment, Climate, WASH, and Resilience, as well as Empowering People, Communities, and Institutions.

A notable aspect of the GoI-UNSDCF is its specific focus on SDG localization and South-South cooperation. This emphasizes India’s leadership in implementing and accelerating the SDGs within its own territory while championing collaboration and knowledge sharing among developing nations.

Implementation and Monitoring

The formulation of the GoI-UNSDCF was led by NITI Aayog, with active participation from line ministries, state governments, union territories, and the UN development system in India. The implementation, monitoring, and reporting of the framework will be co-led by the Government of India and the United Nations through a Joint Steering Committee. This collaborative approach ensures comprehensive oversight and effective coordination to achieve the desired outcomes.

India’s Vision and Global Impact

Over the next 25 years, India envisions a transformed nation, referred to as ‘Viksit Bharat,’ aligned with the clarion call of the Hon’ble Prime Minister. The GoI-UNSDCF plays a crucial role in realizing this vision, ensuring that no one is left behind, and leveraging the potential of India’s vast and diverse demography.

Context is key

 India is a pre-modern, pluralist society

At the Tory conference in the United Kingdom (October 2022), the home secretary, Suella Braverman, referred to the “vocal” and the “ethnic minority” creating serious problems for the “law-abiding majority”. This can be understood as scripting an antithesis to the famous thesis by the British liberal philosopher, John Stuart Mill, who cautioned against the “tyranny of the majority”.

Now, while a word or a concept can be used differently from its original usage, the difference must be recognised. Mill, for instance, was reacting to his predecessor, John Locke, who criticised Robert Filmer. Filmer defended the divine rights of kings. Locke, in turn, proposed moving away from earlier forms of feudalism and theocracies, with citizens choosing their leader as their representative. In case of a lack of consensus, Locke proposed, the majority’s decision would prevail over the minority’s. This provided the foundation for representative democracy as a modern form of politics.

The majority and the minority in Locke and Mill comprise unencumbered modern citizens. However, Braverman’s use of these terms differs from that of Locke or Mill. She uses the word, minority, to refer to non-modern aspects such as ethnicity. Ethnic minorities, in her usage, are ‘encumbered’ within a community or region that falls outside that of ‘unencumbered’ individuals. At the least, she uses minority to refer to an overlap between modern citizens and the pre-modern self encumbered within a community. There is thus a difference between using these key terms within and outside liberalism.

Independent India adopted modernistic ideas of individual freedom and liberty, as well as institutions like parliamentary democracy from liberalism. This progressive move by our national leaders put India’s international profile on a par with other modern states. However, there is a difference between modern Western and Indian experiences. Modern Western nations have modern citizens as premises in the public sphere, and their institutions are based on these modern individuals. At least they projected themselves as such, and this is how the outside world perceived them.

In contrast, while the provision of citizenship is enshrined in the Indian Constitution, there is a vast difference between political ideals and social reality. People are entrenched in pre-modern communities, cultures, regions, religions and languages. The words, majority and minority, which are intrinsic parts of representative democracy, do not have an immediate referent in India. Hence, there is a cleavage between what is and what ought to be.

India is primarily a pre-modern, pluralistic society. Forcibly imposing modern liberal political terminology on Indian society can be problematic and misleading. For instance, Indian liberals and secularists use the terms, minority and majority, to refer not to citizens but to religious communities. This difference, if not recognised, can lead to confusion.

In Locke’s concept of liberalism, the majority is constituted first. The minority is then formed by those not included in the majority — in that sequential order. However, secularists and liberals in India claiming to represent modern liberalism not only used these terms to refer to realities that lie outside of liberalism but also inverted the sequence, creating confusion. They designated the minority first and then created a majority still in the making. These concepts were used as if they were predetermined — the past tense instead of the present continuous.

Critics of secularism have now taken on these concepts and embarked on a massive drive to define the majority by highlighting instances of minority appeasement and are steadily gaining followers. The confusing use of these liberal concepts has also taken its toll outside the political domain, beyond the concepts of minority and majority.

In a plural society like India, there are several majorities and several minorities. For instance, a non-Hindi speaker can feel a deep sense of being the minority in the company of Hindi-speaking people. Similarly, a Hindi-speaking person classified under the majority religion may feel like the minority in a non-Hindi-speaking place. And we find numerous such instances all over India.

An essential feature of a pluralistic society like India is that it allows each person to feel like a minority. Many aspects of a plural society are unfamiliar to its people. For example, several languages and cultural practices are unknown. And, when accessed, you are either alone or in a small group. In turn, this feeling in plural societies can sensitise people to similar feelings in others — a unique, yet common, virtue in a pluralist society. The way terms like majority and minority are used today fails to capture this special feature. Within this context, we can mostly use the shifting nature of the majority and minority.

Terms like majority and minority are thus used within the liberal framework by liberal philosophers like Locke and Mill. However, Braverman’s use of these terms and their use in India falls outside the liberal framework. It is imperative to distinguish these and avoid conflating one with the other. Maintaining this difference can lead to clarity.

Braverman’s comments provides the context to re-examine the background of various theories of liberalism, identify the use of concepts such as minority and majority outside liberalism, investigate the misleading nature of their use in India and highlight their unique aspects.

We also need to focus on making pragmatic political decisions that are sustainable in the long run. Since modern liberal ideals are not indigenous to India, we need to understand their history, their background and the complexities associated with the Indian context to utilise them for more effective decision-making.

Source: The Telegraph, 9/01/23

Counting India’s poor: Numbers suggest the need for a welfare state

 

Madan Sabnavis writes: In such a situation, it is but natural that the government has to assume the role of a welfare state. But the focus has to be on job creation. A joint effort between the Centre and states is needed to push this agenda forward.

The Global Hunger Report has caused a lot of controversy with questions being raised as to what exactly we are talking about. India is definitely the fastest growing economy and has received praise when it comes to reaching out to the needy during Covid or in technology-led innovations like UPI. We are an attractive market for foreign investment and can be reasonably confident of taking up where China has left. Can such a country be so low down the hunger index?

There is a need to introspect on who exactly is poor in India. The concept is nebulous. There was a time when calorie intake was the yardstick. But converting only 2,400 calories a day into a monetary value was always challenging. Besides, people cannot live with just calories. They need access to other amenities like housing, clothing, education and so on. Hence the calorie concept, though a possible criteria, is not really workable today. We need a broader concept.

The World Bank uses the concept of income per day, which is now taken at $1.90. Roughly, this translates to Rs 160 a day in India, and for a family of four would mean Rs 640 a day. On a monthly basis, this will come to around Rs 19,200 or Rs 2.3 lakh for a year. Such an approach runs the risk of using a universal yardstick across the world which is not right. While a weak currency can give a high value in India, this amount may be too low for a developed country (in the US a burger costs more than $1.90). Besides, using either the calorie or income approach runs the risk of extrapolation as it is not possible to get these numbers for the entire population.

Income tax data, while useful in indicating who pays tax, captures only a small segment as it leaves out the big universe of rural people. Hence one cannot even use the Rs 2.5 lakh per annum criterion as a cutoff for measuring the poor.

If, however, the concept of poor is broadened to represent the needy or the vulnerable section of society, there can be some ideas from government action. The government has been aggressive in reaching out to the vulnerable during the pandemic, providing them free food as well as income through cash transfers. This can be a good starting point to assess the population that requires support to maintain their minimum needs. But, here the support has been limited to cash transfers or free food. It does not cover education or health, which are supported through other schemes.

According to IBEF, the PMGKY covered 800 million people. Intuitively, this means that nearly 60 per cent of the 1,350 million population required support from the government and would have found it hard to survive without that. That this has been extended till December 2022 means that the vulnerable population is still very high. This number also includes the 136 million families that were covered under MGNREGA.

In fact, the National Portal of India in September 2020 had put out a statistic that 42 crore poor people benefited from PMGKY which means that around 30 per cent of the population was declared poor by this yardstick. The PM Kisan Scheme involves outlays of between Rs 60,000-70,000 crore. Considering that all the retired urban population does not make a claim by becoming farmers, the cut-off for the pension was put at Rs 10,000 per month. One can assume that the same yardstick was followed for cherry picking the farmers for delivering this benefit.

Here it has been highlighted that 110 million farmers were registered and drew the benefit of Rs 6,000 per annum. Using this policy as a measure to figure out the vulnerable class, which would be restricted only to the farming community, would yield a number of close to a third of the population, assuming that families comprise four members. This will not cover the vulnerable non-farming class, especially in urban areas where there is little information available as there are few urban support programmes run by even the states.

The government programmes are structured well and the use of technology has ensured that there is targeted delivery of benefits. Leakages can be ruled out. Putting all these numbers together, the proportion of vulnerable people in the economy would range between 30 per cent to 60 per cent. The higher end would be more time specific and the revelation of the number of beneficiaries of free food in the last quarter would give a more nuanced number of the vulnerable.

It can, hence, be said the size of the needy population is close to 60 per cent of the total with at least 30 per cent or half of this amount being most vulnerable. In such a situation, it is but natural that the government has to assume the role of a welfare state. But the focus has to be on job creation. Agriculture in particular should be commercialised — the farm laws sought to do so. State governments have a big role to play here. Also, manufacturing has to be revived to create meaningful jobs. A joint effort between the Centre and states is needed to push this agenda forward.

Source: Indian Express, 6/12/22

A fond birthday wish for a land that was once home

 ndia has some of the wealthiest people in the world and many beauty queens. Indian food, movies, sitar music and yoga practices are well accepted all over the world.

When I was a kid in elementary school, all students had to sing a song written by Atulprasad Sen on Independence day and other patriotic occasions: “Bolo bolo bolo sabe, shata beena benu robe, bharat abar jagat shabhay shreshtha asan lobe” (Let us all say with the music of hundreds of veena and flute that India will once again take the best seat on the stage of the world). It was an uplifting song for sure, but no one really believed it. As soon as we stepped outside school we were hit by pollution in the air, sights of extreme poverty, huge numbers of people crowding mass transits, smell from trash and open drains, old rundown buildings, inadequate protection from severe weather and lack of sanitary facilities. The list went on. Our country did not look like being on its way to the best seat. My pessimism for my country was so intense that I emigrated to a prosperous country, the USA, after my graduation from college and for many years I was certain that I made the right decision.

Things started to change in recent decades for the better. Two most significant positive events have been the opening of the Indian market to international trade (the socalled “Economic Liberalisation”) and the global dominance of Indian engineers in Information technology. Both these developments resulted in significant improvements in living standards of the middle class and reduction of poverty. Modernisation of infrastructure followed. High rise buildings with residential “flats”, air-conditioned shopping malls, flyovers at major intersections, new international airports, and fast bypass highways through the outskirts of big cities were built, not to mention metro trainlines. The skyline of my hometown, Kolkata, started to look more like that of Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur. I went back to visit India several times while my parents were alive, but the umbilical cord was cut after they passed away.

There was a thirtyyear gap between the time I attended the last rituals following my father’s death and a more recent trip. I returned with great anticipation to see all the improvements I had been hearing about for years; perhaps we were getting closer to that seat on the world stage, I thought. Yes, I was impressed to see the new Kolkata; things that I could not have even imagined while I lived there. I got glimpses of good life in Kolkata by visiting the “Vedic Village” complex, the South City Mall, the Calcutta Club, and some luxury modern flats belonging to friends. However, as I stayed longer, I realized that despite all these improvements, the attitudes and mindset of people had not changed much, especially as far as tolerance towards imperfection is concerned. Among all the signs of prosperity, three imperfections stood out. First was pollution/dirt.

As soon as I walked out of the airport terminal building upon my arrival in Kolkata that familiar smell from thirty years ago greeted me; a mixture of exhaust fumes from cars and buses, dust, and smoke from open flames. If I were taken blindfolded to all the cities in the world, I would be able to tell when I am in Kolkata just by that smell. When daylight broke the next morning, I could barely see distant buildings through a suffocating layer of smog. It did not bother anyone, but I felt that I would not be able to breathe for too long. Adding to pollution in the air was trash on the ground. Trash was everywhere in small piles, big piles, and scattered on the pavements; papers, left-over food, thrown away rags, miscellaneous small objects, plastic sheets, debris from unfinished construction projects and so on. Some had a strong stench. Then there was dust. Dust was on the streets, on the pavements, in the air. Dust enters homes through open windows and coats everything.

Rain during monsoon seasons does not wash away the dust from the roads into the river because of lack of proper drainage. The second imperfection was blatant corruption. I was told that it was an accepted part of living. Nothing gets done unless officials are bribed. We had corruption when I was living in India, but it has become more open and widespread. Typically, a financial transaction is involved, but it could be non-financial favour as well or some form of nepotism. If you need a good job, a house in a decent area, admission into a good school or treatment at a good hospital, you must know someone with influence there. “Corruption is everywhere” was the comment from one of my friends. The current WBSSC recruitment scandal is the latest example of such mega corruption. My third observation was that although lives of poor and lowerincome families had improved through a “trickle-down” economic principle, the improvements were not in the same proportion as those of rich and middle-class people.

The percentage of poor people compared to the total population seemed to have increased. Part of it is related to corruption; poor people cannot even pay bribes nor have the right connections to advance in life. I asked my cousin’s driver one day. “Did you finish high school? What motivated you to become a driver?”. He said with an embarrassed smile, “I went up to the ninth grade. I wanted to join the military which needed drivers. I learned how to drive, completed all the requirements and the training, but then I was asked to pay Rs. 40,000 in bribe before I could enroll. I did not have that kind of money. At least, I can now earn some money by driving for private people.” He was making about $12 per day even if he worked all day. He was married and his wife was expecting a baby. This was the snapshot of “have-nots” in Kolkata. India became a free country in 1947 and we are about to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Independence Day. My sincere birthday wish for mother India is that people who take care of her – the current and future governments – make it the highest priority to fix pollution and corruption and make her clean, literally and figuratively.

I further wish that India indeed does take that best seat on the world stage before she turns 100. It certainly sounds plausible, unlike the time when I was a kid. India is already projected to be the third largest economy in the world within the next two decades. There will soon be more Indians than any other nationality on this earth. India is the largest democracy with nuclear capabilities. Indians are highly successful in almost all aspects of society in many foreign countries. India has some of the wealthiest people in the world and many beauty queens. Indian food, movies, sitar music and yoga practices are well accepted all over the world.

Indians are thought to be smart, philosophical, peace-loving people with friendly personality and humility. India, with the dominating presence of three of the four largest religions in the world, is considered the place for any spiritual journey. When I was leaving India on my way back to the USA, many of my relatives and friends asked if I would ever consider returning for good. My answer to them was a sincere yes. “But if I come back, it would be to go to the Himalayas for my ultimate quest. I would be wandering the foothills with just a cane in search for that supreme power.” I indeed wish that I will reunite with my mother and complete my own spiritual journey. I can hear that song in my ears: “A ab laut chalen…tujhko pukare desh tera”.

BASAB DASGUPTA 

Source: The Statesman, 11/08/22

Storm shelter: The battle for the Ideas of India

 Sometimes, when I think of India on the day it was born, August 15, 1947, I have the image of people starting to erect a huge,open-sided tent over a large mass of suffering human beings. The tent is made of patchwork, from whatever material is available, with all sorts of colour, all kinds of texture, being sown together. To stretch over so many people,this covering material needs supports,both at its edges and in the middle, and these supports too are made from diverse material and are of different heights.The people who have volunteered for the job of erecting the tent have no choice but to work together, work in concert as well as attentively in sequence: Section B needing to wait for Section A to complete its task before it can begin its own, with Section C and D waiting their turn and so on.

At minimum, the covering is meant to protect people from the heat and the rain. From the glare of exploitation, the long drought of scarcity, the drench of widespread disease. No matter what the apologists of the British Empire now tell us, let us never forget that a smallish country halfway across the planet made itself the most prosperous on earth on the backs of our labour and our resources for nearly two hundred years. Let’s remember that it then abandoned the million sit had squeezed dry to continuing poverty and the aftermath of the mass violence triggered by its precipitate withdrawal.In 1948, the year after the British left India, despite the great depletions of the Second World War and the loss of their largest colony, they could institute and fund the National Health Service,which provided health coverage to every Briton, no matter how rich or poor. The government could re-target tax money and deploy it to this end with conscious,educated mass support because of the education system that had been put in place over the previous century, a system which was, like everything else,funded by the spoils of Empire. After the shocks of the Depression and the War in the late 40s and 50s, the United States of America, Britain and western Europe delivered access to university education to a wider section of their populations than ever before. This meant that capitalists were paying taxes that funded the education of many youngsters who used that knowledge and chose to become some shade of liberal, socialist or communist,young people who would spend the rest of their lives fighting to instal some checks and balances against rampant,profit-making corporations.

In the meantime, in India, the problem in erecting the tent was the matter of sequencing: you could not have basic education without basic health but,equally, you could not have basic health without a modicum of education; you could not allow entrepreneurs a free-run towards profit in an obscenely unequal society but there was no way of creating a more equal society without giving private industry some opportunity to grow(the limitations of the Soviet Five-Year plans were evident even as we copied them to some extent); economically, you could not shut yourself off from the rest of the world, yet there was no question of pawning the country’s resources to the multinationals backed by the big Western powers (the examples of what was then happening in Iran, Congo and South America were vivid and bloody). Nehru, Patel, Azad, Rajaji and other leaders navigated the young, vulnerable Republic through these sharp, contradictory rocks but in this they were hardly alone — helping to erect and shore up different sections of the tent was a whole army of labourers, farmers, dedicated administrators, politicians, social activists,military servicemen, intellectuals and artists.

History continuously redacts itself.Most of the people who were alive in those first formative years of Independence have now passed on. The ones who were then kids — or just born— now rule over us, even as they themselves stand on the exit ramps of life. In the intervening years, one of the main struggles that has developed within the nation is the battle for memory, a war over what is to be forgotten and erased,over what is to be remembered and how it is to be remembered.

Even as this and other struggles have enlarged underneath it, the enormous and complex task of erecting that basic tent has never been completed. It has been ongoing, stopping at times, starting again, stalling again. At times, segments of the covering have been brought down by gales and storms from the outside;at other times, bits of the tent have collapsed when internal supports have broken down or have been deliberately removed; some areas have had firm covering for long periods, while others have remained exposed to the elements. After seventy-five years, this partly secure,partly ramshackle, leaky but colourful patchwork held up by an assortment of poles and supports is what we call India,Bharat, Hindustan, desh, watan, mulk. This trembling, uneven structure maybe kept together by a whole variety of jugaad, but it is also vast and has a sort of miraculous togetherness, which is different from any rigid ‘unity’.

In the warren of substructures that have come up below the larger covering,often people in one corner have no idea what others are doing in another pocket.From time to time, we’ve seen ‘leaders’,politicians who’ve managed to work themselves to the very centre, attempting to push other people to the margins and even out of the sheltering cover of the tent. In striving to do this, they can be seen hacking away at the strongest supports, tearing holes into the strongest covering. We can see that if these people continue, they will shortly bring the roof down on everybody and not just on the sections of the populace they have labelled the enemy.

After seventy-five years, it should be clear that there are not just one or two ‘Ideas of India’ but multiple competing ideas of what our country should be. We need to interrogate each of these with cold-eyed urgency. Within a few years, roughly 20 per cent of all the humans on this small, troubled planet will be looking to shelter under the tent we call India. As ethnicities and genetic groups increasingly mix with one another,our species is moving towards multiplying micro-diversities rather than any overarching homogeneity. The people we call Indians are centrally apart of this — in a hundred years, people will hopefully shun any ideas of purity,whether regional or religious or caste identities; there may not be any Bengalis or Gujaratis, any Hindus or Muslims,any upper or lower castes as we understand these categories today. Climate change, global warming, ecological crises, whatever your preferred codification,will need large masses of people living adjacently to work with rather than against each other. Therefore, we must ask: which idea of India provides succour and safety to the widest variety of people? Which idea is most accommodating of difference, whether ethnic,racial, religious, of sexual orientation,of differing practices of living? Which idea will ensure the fairest distribution of increasingly scarce resources? Which processes of completing, repairing and shoring up the loose tent that was begun 75 years ago will provide the best quality of life to the largest number of people?

Ruchir Joshi

Source: The Telegraph, 9/08/22

Colonial mentality’: A misinterpreted notion that stitched together a nation

 India as a country might have existed even without colonial rule, but would that have been a ‘modern nation’? There's no simple answer to this

The term ‘colonial mentality’, often used by cultural nationalists today, especially towards their western-educated compatriots, has got one thinking. If one supposes that it applies to those Indians who do not value their own cultural past but only look to the West, it seems valid enough.

But let us first consider what the Indian nation owes to colonialism. There are, of course, those who say that without the British, India would not have been unified politically, but there was a Mughal empire before the British arrived. India might not have had its present shape if that empire had continued or evolved into other things but it could still have remained a unity of sorts.

But while India as a country might have existed, could that India ever have been a ‘modern nation’, considering that our Constitution owes itself to western models? Independent India’s first leaders were mostly lawyers and it was their training in the western legal system that made them see the need to depend on social values defined as essential in western democracies (democracy, egalitarianism, justice) and duly have them enshrined.

Yet, many still continue to refer to the “colonial mindset” as a negative factor, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  In November last, on the occasion of Constitution Day, Modi said “the colonial mindset is giving rise to many distortions”.  On another occasion, he said “India’s growth story is being disrupted by forces with colonial mindsets”.

In writing about the origins of nationalism in colonial India, political scientist Partha Chatterjee (The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, 1993) notes that articulation of anti-colonial nationalism rested on a separation between two distinct spheres, namely, the spiritual and the material. The material realm is one of economy, statecraft, science and technology, in which the superiority of the West, represented by the colonial power, is an established fact. In the material domain, therefore, the historical task before the colonised was to reproduce for itself, the benefits of the project of colonial enlightenment and modernity.

Sovereign in the spiritual

The spiritual realm, on the other hand, represented true sovereignty for the colonised. It was a sphere of cultural distinctness from, and also superiority over, the colonisers, and hence needed to be preserved in that uncontaminated way. If the material sphere represented the superiority of the colonial rulers, it was the spiritual domain which was the main source of strength and autonomy for the colonised.

Therefore, the spiritual domain was one that needed to be preserved from colonial encroachments. This symbolised nationalism among the colonised people. Any kind of reforms or intervention in the said domain would be completely in the hands of the colonised masses.

Therefore, the essence of the ‘imagined’ nation rested in the so-called spiritual or inner domain in which the colonised masses were sovereign despite being ruled by an alien, foreign power in the material sphere. Extrapolating it to today, we could say that for a modern India to emerge, it would necessarily have to depend on the West in virtually every field that could have played a part it its ‘design’ as an independent nation – economics, political structure, and the areas of science and technology.

But I would also like to make an intervention here, which is that once the nation was constructed according to such material necessities, it would need to keep producing citizens who were well-versed in these areas. Which means that the education system would also have to be heavily western-oriented to produce them.

Where material and spiritual meet

That brings us to the spiritual domain in which the colonised masses were said to be sovereign and where there was strong resistance to allowing the colonial state to intervene since it affected ‘national culture’. But if national culture must also be built upon, a question would be whether it would not need to be studied through methods implicating the ‘material’?

Let us take classical music, for instance, something that cultured Indians are justly proud of. Would it be enough to simply preserve it – as in a museum – or would we need to understand how it came about to be this way? A matter worthy of investigation (for instance) could be why Indian and western classical music evolved to emphasise melody and harmony, respectively.

Since it is widely believed that music owes originally to prayer, a hypothesis could be that common prayer led to harmony in music while the notion of the personal god led to melody. Voices singing in unison would need to be organised for the result to be ‘musical’.

Another key observation is that for the spiritual in culture – which would include the arts – to bloom, it would need growth, since culture should address the contemporary in some way. But once we introduce study and development, I would argue that the ‘material realm’ would naturally intrude into the spiritual one. Apart from sociological investigations, music, for instance, would need to use the technology available to the fullest to improve upon itself.

Personal goals

Chatterjee does not elaborate on this aspect but the ‘spiritual’ side of Indian culture as opposed to the ‘material’ realm that the West dominates, owes, arguably, to Indian modes of thinking that place emphasis on personal salvation rather than social transformation and progress. But, extending the argument, how are a group of individuals preoccupied with personal (spiritual) ends to come together to imagine/create a nation collectively, entirely through such personal goals? For such a collection of individuals to band together with common ‘national’ objectives, they would necessarily have to stray deep into the ‘material’ realm.

Lastly, we also need to interrogate the notion of an ‘uncontaminated’ national culture. While one may be proud of the cultural achievements of the people in a designated space or community to which one belongs (a school, a family, a village), associating that pride with the ‘modern nation’ infects the notion. It is only the construct of the nation that makes a Kannada speaker from Bengaluru see an achievement in Bengal as his or her own, but that construct came about because of exercises undertaken in the material realm, like the writing of the Constitution. We could say that unless all these aspects are duly noted, the ‘colonial mentality’ will only remain a term of abuse.

(MK Raghavendra is a writer on politics, culture and film)

Source: The Federal, 4/05/22

How technology is transforming e-commerce experience in the new India

 The term ‘Incredible India’ seems apt when one considers the sheer diversity of languages, cultures and ethnicities across the country. For the retail industry, which contributes approximately 10% to India’s gross domestic product (GDP), the huge consumer market is both an opportunity and a challenge. The challenge is more pronounced in the relatively-untapped rural and semi-urban regions that account for about 65% of the population.

Although the digital transformation of India’s retail industry was already under way in recent years, pandemic-linked tailwinds have accelerated the acceptance of e-commerce among both sellers and consumers. As per estimates, unorganized retail accounts for 90% of the market in India. Of these, online shoppers are said to number 70 million, with only 10 million categorized as ‘digital natives’. Without a doubt, in a nation of more than 1.3 billion people, tremendous scope exists for attracting more online shoppers via personalized products and services, particularly from regional India.

The availability of smartphones and 4G in tier-3+ areas opened up this vast market to e-commerce players. Thanks to the absence of physical stores, online companies offer more value-for-money prices due to their lower overheads. It must be emphasized, however, that value-conscious consumers expect quality products too.

But given the plethora of languages and customs, catering to the remote cohorts comes with unique complexities. In such scenarios, online entities can deploy digital technologies to offer their customers personalized experiences, facilitating higher conversion rates and greater brand loyalty. What’s more, the beauty of online selling lies in the fact that e-commerce portals don’t need to worry about storage space and its allied costs since goods are shipped directly from producers. For sellers, there are no worries about inventory being locked up in warehouses till sales materialize.

While all this sounds kosher, it takes more to convince and convert customers in tier-3 towns and beyond. Therefore, online retailers are using a regional language interface to offer better customer experiences. Additionally, retailers are deploying big data to decode consumer behaviour for providing bespoke offerings. In such situations, a thorough understanding of customer needs helps boost satisfaction and retention rates.

The use of AI algorithms and big data analytics also helps in analysing consumer behaviour through their shopping information such as product preferences, browsing history, etc. Predictive analytics is then leveraged to improve the customer experience by customizing marketing campaigns centred on their habits and needs. For instance, the data of a major value-based online retailer reveals that customers exploring the portal through regional languages end up spending 20% additional time on the platform, which includes higher viewership of product videos.

Accordingly, customer experiences can be personalized by analysing their purchase history to pitch relevant deals and discounts. Besides, the purchases of other consumers in the same demographic cohort can be used to upsell related products.

Moreover, retailers must provide a personalized omni-channel experience whereby a customer can order a product on the website/app and then collect from a brick-and-mortar outlet near them if they so desire. Amidst all this, one must realize the importance of social media as a digital shop floor where sellers can engage with prospective customers directly. Instagram and Facebook are prime examples here with the former offering visual storefronts that help increase customer traction.

Bear in mind, though, that marketers on social media must be digitally-savvy and in sync with customer needs and expectations. Any mismatch in consumer expectations runs the risk of a bad experience being put under the public gaze.

If big data and other tech tools are used judiciously to engage with consumers, they can act as a key differentiator in providing a clear edge to e-commerce players in a highly cluttered and hyper-competitive retail market. In this way, an ongoing relationship can be established with consumers throughout Bharat.

Thereafter, despite the diversity of consumer choices, more satisfaction and increased brand loyalty are bound to follow across non-metro regions. Undoubtedly, technology can offer a winning proposition for customers, sellers, online platforms and other retail stakeholders

Sanjeev Barnwal, co-founder and chief technology officer of Meesho.

Source: Mintepaper, 15/02/22

Why do Indians do so well abroad?

 

Vikram Patel writes: It has less to do with their Indian heritage and more to do with Western countries’ commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

In these times of hyper-nationalism, inevitably fuelled by the 75th anniversary of independence, I have been flooded with messages, forwarded by patriotic relatives, friends and random persons, extolling India’s greatness. One such message was provocatively titled “Who’s running the World?” (with no apologies to Noam Chomsky). Here is a synopsis: One day, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi were arguing about who was in charge of the world. After much deliberation, Modi replied that all he knew was that the leading CEOs of the world were Indian. The message then rattles off a list of companies, many of which are household names (think Google and Microsoft) and, after 21 such examples, a shorter list of Indians who have ascended to political heights in other countries. And this was before a person of Indian origin ascended to the helm of Twitter and the omission of persons of Indian origin who have headed prestigious global NGOs such as Medicins sans Frontiers and Amnesty International or headed US states or European countries (Portugal and Ireland and some predict the UK in the near future!).

There is little doubt that persons born in India out-perform all other nationalities in the sheer scale of their success when they migrate to the “West” (essentially, Europe and North America). Earlier this week, I read that people of Indian origin top the list of US unicorns’ immigrant founders. But I wondered if these observations reflected more on the “greatness” of the country they had migrated to rather than India herself? What struck me was the discrepancy between a few million Indians doing so well abroad, the most celebrated of whom were taking their companies (and, in some instances, countries) to dizzying heights, while India herself, despite being home to over a billion fellow Indians, continues to languish at the bottom of virtually every list of countries ranked on desirable goals such as human development, income equality, food security, gender equality, air quality, transparency, universal health coverage, literacy and sanitation. In the World Happiness Report 2020, we rank alongside Afghanistan, South Sudan and Yemen. And what’s more worrying, our rankings on these lists has been falling in recent years.

I know I’m not alone in wondering about this conundrum. I have reflected on this a lot, drawing upon my own personal experience of working as a public health scientist in India and in the US and UK, supplemented with stories of achievements of migrant Indians in the academy, and of relatives and friends who left India with just pennies in their pockets. I have come to conclude that the principal reason Indians do so well when they migrate to the West has less to do with their Indian heritage than the ways in which their adopted countries have shaped their societies, at the heart of which is their explicit commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Indeed, if it were not for this commitment, it would have been simply impossible for people from a completely foreign land, who embrace alien religions and cultures, to achieve such exalted success in a single-generation. It is these features which account for the meteoric rise of migrants from India.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Diversity, equity and inclusion were certainly not prominent in the history of the West, dominated by genocide, slavery, colonialism and white supremacy. But, in the past half-century, these countries actively sought to reimagine their societies as beacons of multiculturalism where people of all hues and ethnicities could realise the possibility of achieving the highest offices in the land. It is surely ironic, then, that those fleeing India are leaving a land which was, historically, the most diverse nation in the world. India’s singular claim to greatness lay in its unparalleled history of multiculturalism, a mosaic of diverse people far richer and much older than the European Union or the countries created by European settlers after murdering the indigenous peoples. A land where thousands of languages were spoken, which birthed four of the world’s major religions and gave shelter to the others, a place which assimilated its invaders to further enrich its melting pot. Despite the persistence of ancient prejudices and the considerable work still to be done to achieve equity and inclusion for all her diverse peoples, India remains an audacious and unique civilisational feat.

But that India now seems to be fading away as the fault-lines between communities whose ancestries and histories are inseparably intertwined are being inexorably, and deliberately, widened. I watch with despair as violence, both symbolic and actual, is replacing the arts, culture and faith as the language of identity, and homogenisation is replacing diversity as the defining feature of our nationhood. I watch with sorrow the increasing marginalisation and falling representation of minorities in public institutions (barring prisons), the demonisation of diverse food habits and customs, the rewriting of history to reframe some of our customs as being foreign and to be shunned, and the terror threatening co-habitation and marriage between communities. This seems to me to be exactly the wrong recipe for greatness, one which will not only further diminish our country in the eyes of the world but, more importantly, in the eyes of our own youth.

The list of names of “Indians” who rule the world ends with Kamala Harris. Of course, her story is utterly inspirational. But, I wondered about the odds that a person like her, the female child of a Hindu Indian and a black Christian West Indian in a predominantly white, patriarchal country, could reach such heights in India today. And she is not an outlier. With the appointment of Yasmin Trudeau as a state senator on Monday, Washington state legislature has four women of South Asian origin, including a Hindu, a Sikh and a Muslim. One of these women, Mona Das from Bihar, said this remarkable occasion was proof that America celebrated the diversity of her communities.

I have no doubt that our nationalists love India, but it baffles me that they cannot see what is staring at us in our faces: Hate and othering will extinguish the flicker of hope for our young people craving for a country where the diversity of personal identities is a marker of a country’s maturity, magnanimity and modernity. Worryingly, in the three years from 2016 to 2019, the number of young Indians who fled the country to study abroad increased by 40 per cent and I expect that the numbers will climb further in the years ahead. Most will become migrants and will undoubtedly further swell the ranks of “Indians” who “rule the world”.

It is our diversity which is our greatest asset and which the West has co-opted, along with some of our brightest talent. If we want India to realise greatness, we will need to reaffirm our commitment to embracing, celebrating and protecting this very essence of our nation.

Written by Vikram Patel

Source: Indian Express, 19/02/22

The rich-poor gap in India

 

The latest World Inequality Report flags India as a poor and very unequal country, with the top 10% holding 57% of national income in 2021, and the bottom 50% holding just 13%. Breaking down the key findings.

India stands out as a “poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite”, where the top 10% holds 57% of the total national income, including 22% held by the top 1%, while the bottom 50% holds just 13% in 2021, according to the World Inequality Report 2022. Released this week, the report also flags a drop in global income during 2020, with about half the dip in rich countries, and half in low-income and emerging countries. It attributes this primarily to the impact of “South and Southeast Asia, and more precisely” India.

The report has been authored by economist and co-director of the World Inequality Lab, Lucas Chancel, along with economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.

“India stands out as a poor and very unequal country, with an affluent elite,” the report says. It says India’s middle class is relatively poor with an average wealth of Rs 7,23,930, or 29.5% of the total national income, compared with the top 10% and 1% who own 65% (Rs 63,54,070) and 33% (Rs 3,24,49,360), respectively.

The average annual national income of the Indian adult population is Rs 2,04,200 in 2021. The bottom 50% earned Rs 53,610, while the top 10% earned over 20 times more (Rs 11,66,520), the report states. The average household wealth is Rs 9,83,010, of which the bottom 50% owns Rs 66,280, a mere 6%.

The share of the top 10% and bottom 50% in pre-tax national income has remained broadly constant since 2014. The quality of inequality data released by the government has seriously deteriorated, making it particularly difficult to assess recent inequality changes, the report says.

As per the recent Multi-dimensional Poverty Index prepared by Niti Aayog, one in every four people in India was multi-dimensionally poor. Bihar has the highest such proportion (51.91%), followed by Jharkhand (42.16%) and Uttar Pradesh (37.79%).

Pandemic impact

The impact of the pandemic was reflected in a drop in global income, which was impacted significantly due to India. “When India is removed from the analysis, it appears that the global bottom 50 per cent income share actually slightly increased in 2020,” the report says.

Also, even as countries have become richer over the last 40 years, their governments have become significantly poorer, a trend magnified due to the pandemic. “The share of wealth held by public actors is close to zero or negative in rich countries, meaning that the totality of wealth is in private hands. This trend has been magnified by the Covid crisis, during which governments borrowed the equivalent of 10-20 per cent of GDP, essentially from the private sector,” the report says.

The rise in private wealth has also been unequal within countries and at world levels. Since the mid-1990s, the top 1% globally took 38% of all additional wealth accumulated, whereas the bottom 50 per cent captured just 2%. “The wealth of the richest individuals on earth has grown at 6 to 9% per year since 1995, whereas average wealth has grown at 3.2% per year. This increase was exacerbated during the COVID pandemic,” it says.

Global, regional trends

The poorest half of the global population “barely owns any wealth” at just 2% of the total, whereas the richest 10% owns 76%, the report says. The richest 10% currently takes 52% of global income, and the poorest earns just 8% (Figure 1).

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are the most unequal regions in the world, whereas Europe has the lowest inequality levels, the report says. In Europe, the top 10%’s income share is around 36%, and in MENA, it is 58%; in East Asia, it is 43%, and in Latin America, 55%.

Global wealth was equal to around 510 trillion euros in 2020, or about 600% of national income. The ratio of total wealth to total income rose from around 450% in the early 1990s to about 600% today. In high-income countries, in 1970, private wealth–national income ratios ranged between 200-400%. By 2008, when the global financial crisis began, these ratios averaged 550%.

Large emerging economies such as China and India experienced faster increases than wealthy countries after they transitioned away from communism (in China and Russia) or from a highly regulated economic system (in India). In India, private wealth increased from 290% in 1980 to 560% in 2020.

Global inequalities seem to be about as great today as they were at the peak of Western imperialism in the early 20th century, the report said.

Other key inequalities

Women’s share of total incomes from work was about 30% in 1990, and is less than 35% now, the report notes.

Inequalities within countries are now greater than those between countries. Within countries, the gap between the average incomes of the top 10% and the bottom 50% almost doubled from 18 times in 1820 to 41 times in 1910, reached an all-time high of 53 in 1980 and 50 in 2000, before declining to 38 in 2020.

It notes that global income and wealth inequalities are “tightly connected to ecological inequalities and to inequalities in contributions to climate change”. The top 10% of emitters is responsible for close to 50% of all emissions, while the bottom 50% contributes 12%.

If the rich were taxed

The report has suggested levying a modest progressive wealth tax on multimillionaires.

In 2021, there were 62.2 million people owning more than $1 million (measured at market exchange rates). Their average wealth was $2.8 million, a total of $174 trillion. More than 1.8 million individuals (top 0.04%) own over $10 million, 76,500 (0.001%) own over $100 million, and 2,750 (0.00005%) own more than a billion dollars. The billionaires own more than $13 trillion, or 3.5% of global wealth (Table 1).

A global effective wealth tax rate of 1.2% for wealth over $1 million, the report said, could generate revenues of 2.1% of global income. A tax rate of 0.6% for wealth between $1-10 million can yield 0.6% of global income, a 1.1% rate for wealth group $10-100 million can generate 0.4% of global income, and a 5% rate for wealth between $1 billion and $10 billion could generate 0.3% of global income.

Written by Aanchal Magazine

Source: Indian Express, 10/12/21

Creating an inclusive welfare architecture

 

Cover all of India’s poor; and merge welfare programmes under one umbrella scheme

The recently announced Atmanirbhar 3.0 package offers important insights into the Centre’s approach to welfare spending in response to the economic shocks caused by Covid-19. The choices point to critical limitations in India’s current welfare architecture and the politics that shape spending choices. With the focus now shifting to the 2021 budget, there is an urgent need to reflect on these choices and articulate a road map for the next year. A robust, inclusive welfare architecture is both a moral imperative as well a critical component for economic recovery.

First, the good news. India’s existing welfare architecture has proved resilient and capable in preventing deep distress in rural India. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and the Public Distribution System (PDS) proved to be lifelines as central and state governments were able to mobilise the administrative machinery and expand the welfare net, at relative speed. By October, nearly two-thirds of the MGNREGS budget had already been spent while demand for work remains unabated. In response, Atmanirbhar 3.0 has increased allocations by a further ₹10,000 crore; this may not be enough given the scale of demand but continued budgetary expansion highlights the essential role of MGNREGS.

For those with ration cards, the PDS was a vital source of relief. Independent surveys point out that a large number of eligible beneficiaries (the numbers range from 63% to above 90%) received grains allocated through the Atmanirbhar package. That the central government extended the expanded PDS scheme till November 2020 (just in time to reap benefits from the Bihar elections) is a good indicator of its effectiveness. The problem with the PDS was not its failure to deliver but rather the failure to universalise the PDS.

For years, policy debates on India’s welfare architecture have sought to pit MGNREGS and PDS as inefficient schemes against the deceptively elegant promise of cash transfers. That both schemes have proved effective in responding to the large-scale shock of Covid-19 should put this debate to rest. The emphasis now needs to shift to expansion and strengthening delivery.

Urban India, however, has not been well served. India’s welfare architecture is simply not designed to respond to the needs of the urban poor, especially migrant workers. With the exception of the PDS (available only to residents) and a smattering of insurance and pension programmes (accounting for a mere 6% of total central government spending on social protection), social protection for urban India is conspicuously absent.

The urban (largely casual, daily wage) worker has paid a heavy price for this absence. Yet, the horrific images of millions of workers walking home, and surveys repeatedly highlighting the sharp income drop amongst urban workers have failed to elicit an adequate policy response.

Absent a pre-existing scheme, the Centre had few instruments at its disposal to deploy to respond to urban distress, although, with a little imagination, this was not an insurmountable hurdle. The emphasis has thus been limited to portability of ration cards under the one nation, one ration card scheme. Reports indicate that a welcome proposal to launch an urban MGNREGS was discussed but later abandoned in favour of increased expenditure in the urban housing scheme and boosting urban employment through incentives for EPFO-registered firms. Given the realities of India’s informal economy — in recent months, the number of EPFO registered firms has dropped — it is unlikely that the latter will be able to respond to the scale of unemployment and associated urban distress.

The lesson to be drawn from the Covid-19 induced economic distress and the Centre’s response is the urgent need to transform India’s social protection architecture into a dynamic system that ensures universal coverage of all of India’s poor. Several interlocutors have argued for a universal (or quasi-universal) cash transfer as the critical missing link that can bridge this gap between rural and urban social protection. However, this debate misses the dynamic nature of the social protection needs of India’s poor. Fifty per cent of India’s population is vulnerable, ie can slip back into poverty with one income shock. This population needs a dynamic basket of social protection instruments — pensions, life insurance, health insurance and distress-linked cash or employment in times of crisis or sluggish growth. Prioritisation will depend on local labour market conditions.

The only effective strategy is to build a decentralised social protection system that allows states and even districts to design schemes to their specific conditions. Some states have begun experimenting, but urban schemes need fiscal support. This is where politics trumps first principles. The impulse to centralise and seek direct credit for welfare is entrenched in our politics.

There is one way to balance politics and first principles. As recommended by the World Bank, the Centre can, alongside core national schemes like the MGNREGS and PDS, repurpose its 400+ social protection transfer schemes into one umbrella scheme but leave states to design interventions to their needs, political credit and blame can be apportioned across Centre and states. The 2021 budget is an opportunity to implement this much-needed reform. Sensible rationalisation and expenditure repurposing can serve as the foundation of an agile, dynamic and inclusive social protection architecture.

Yamini Aiyar is president and chief executive, Centre for Policy Research

Source: Hindustan Times, 18/11/20