Progress and retreat

From John Locke to John Rawls, Western liberal theoreticians have engaged themselves in the discourse on Rights in market-led democracies. This abstract discussion has found great acceptability amongst policymakers and academics in rich Western Countries. Yet, it must be stated at the onset that Development and Human Rights are value-loaded terms, and it may be argued that votaries of Capitalism primarily pursue their own self-interest in proclaiming that market-led development will extend the Rights of the poor.

This edited volume by Arjun Sengupta, Archna Negi and Moushumi Basu, comprising contributions from academic colleagues of Sengupta, is quite informative on the reality of Development for Rights in South Asia. The ten contributions are divided into three sections: "An Introduction to Right to Development"; "Studies in Right to Development"; and "Social Choice and Right to Development".

The first section has four contributions, and attempts to discuss some theoretical and general issues concerning the problem under study. Rajiv Malhotra, in his chapter "Right to Development: Where Are We Today?" tells us about the evolution of the concept, beginning from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights' resolution of 1977 "explicitly referring to a right to development for the first time". This is a mechanical way to present the problem, since official declarations are often just that: declarations. President Roosevelt of the USA, Lester Pearson of Canada in his "Partnership for Development" and Julius Neyrere in his South Commission Report, among others, have all done their part in paying lip service to this Right. For all the handwringing, Malhotra concludes that "...not all the conceptual, legal and operational aspects of the Right have been settled yet".

While the studies in Section II on Sri Lanka and India convey the message that the Right to Development remains a pipedream, the suggestions offered are too unrealistic, to my mind, to make a difference. Godfrey Gunatilleke, in a longish chapter on Sri Lanka, ends with the suggestion that private sector regulation be tightened to protect people at large. Very clearly, then, this volume wants the Right to Development to be emphasised within the contours of the free market frame of application.

Angus Deaton and Jean Dreze, in their chapter on "Poverty and Inequality in India: a re-examination", are on the same platform. They point to "rising economic inequality in the 1990s" (of which the widening rural-urban gap is just one indicator) and write that "... the impact of liberalization is a 'counterfactual' question and much depends on how the alternatives are specified." This could be interpreted as a plea for further funding of research on the impact of the 1990s on inequality in India. Yet, it would be empirically correct to maintain that the Indian state and ruling classes have largely retreated from their active intervention in dealing with the problems of inequality and the caste, class, region and religion-based tensions that have arisen.

Jayati Ghosh, in her chapter on "The Right to Development and International Economic Regimes", hits out at the adverse consequences of "the new regime of international economic integration which is described under the umbrella term globalization". But she also falls into the trap of offering hope to the victims of global capitalism by stating that the "overproduction and consequent dumping of cotton in international markets by US agri-business" amounts to a violation of African farmers' Right to Development, and that effective lobbying at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for an adherence to trade rules on their behalf can restore justice.

This book, then, like so many others of recent publication is also in favour of the current global ideology of the state in retreat, and seeks to alleviate the many miseries of poverty and underdevelopment through the mechanisms that broadly constitute the free market economy, which has enormous funds for its self-propagation as an intellectual enterprise.

Perhaps that in itself will foster the dissent that is so crucial as a regulatory force in the intellectual arena. It seems to me that Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth", who struggle to live with human dignity under the present global regime, will have to look for voices outside the ambit of the market system as it is operating currently. India's debt-ridden marginal farmers continue to commit suicide at an alarming rate. The debate on the Right to Development needs to be widened out to include voices from the grassroots that remain resistant to intellectual and other allurements, have no significant stake in the market system, and are willing to exercise an independent mind in testing theory against ground observations.

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REFLECTIONS ON THE
RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT

Edited by Arjun Sengupta, Archna Negi & Moushumi Basu
Sage
Price: Rs 650; Pages: 366