Social activist Aruna Roy's resignation from the National Advisory Council (NAC) has brought the organisation into the limelight once again. On the face of it, the resignation may appear baffling. But a closer look will, however, show that it is a shrewd scapegoating manoeuvre.
Let's examine the NAC-inspired policies and laws, prominent among them being the Right to Information (RTI) Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), both enacted in 2005; the Forest Rights Act, 2006; and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009. It may be mentioned here, though, that the RTI had a long history and many people, including Anna Hazare, Justice P B Sawant and H D Shourie, had worked for it earlier. Similarly, communist parties played an important role in the rural job guarantee scheme. Yet, it is indisputable that the Sonia Gandhi-headed NAC was instrumental in bringing in these laws.
What good have these Acts done? The RTI Act was intended, according to the government, "to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens to secure access to information under the control of public authorities, in order to promote transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority...". The right has been used by activists and others to expose many anomalies in governance and bureaucratic functioning, but this surge of information has not improved public accountability; otherwise, corruption scandals would not have grown the way they have in the last few years.
The Forest Rights Act was intended, among other things, "to recognise and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers...". It is evident that the law has not improved the condition of Scheduled Tribes or other forest dwellers. It, however, has become a tool in the hands of those who are doctrinally opposed to private sector-led industrialisation.
The RTE is about providing "free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of six to 14 years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the state may, by law, determine". But, according to the Annual Status of Education Report 2012 brought out by NGO Pratham, "In 2008, the proportion of children in Std 3 who could read a Std 1 text was under 50 per cent, which has dipped... to nearly 30 per cent. A child in Std 3 has to learn to do two-digit subtraction, but the proportion of children in government schools who can even recognise numbers up to 100 correctly has dropped from 70 per cent to near 50 per cent over the last four years with the real downward turn distinctly visible after 2010, the year RTE came into force."
Similarly, the MGNREGA was aimed "at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work". The scheme has clearly failed in its primary objective -"enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas". And we are not even talking about the corruption spawned by legislation, the fiscal consequences and the moral hazard of reducing free citizens to serfs perennially looking askance at the gigantic landlord, the state.
According to Planning Commission figures, employment in agriculture actual came down from 258.93 million in 2004-05 to 244.85 million in 2009-10. In the previous five years, on the other hand, it had increased by more than 21 million. The story was the same for another sector, manufacturing, where the number of jobs came down from 55.77 million in 2004-05 to 50.74 million in 2009-10. Again, there was a huge jump in the previous five years.
The decline of employment in manufacturing is as amazing as it is depressing. For one, manufacturing is a big employer. Second, according to the Economic Survey figures, during 2004-10, manufacturing annually grew by 9.2 per cent, 10.1 per cent, 14.3 per cent, 10.3 per cent, 4.3 per cent and 11.3 per cent, respectively. In the previous five years, the highest rate was 7.4 per cent. On the whole, however, Planning Commission data showed that while employment grew by over 60 million during 1999-2004, in the following six years, the figure was below three million. The policies of the Congress-led government clearly led to jobless growth - something the NAC rails against.
It is worth mentioning that the impressive job creation in the period when the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled (1998-2004) was primarily because the saffron party chose to continue with the reforms started in 1991. But Roy will not acknowledge this fact. Blind adherence to the socialist dogma prevents Roy and her ideological brethren from taking any responsibility for the government's disastrous performance on the job front. In fact, most of NAC-dictated laws and policies have been economically and fiscally ruinous; many more suggested by it, like the food security Bill, will be even worse.
Yet, Roy told PTI after her resignation: "There is an ideological bias that the government has taken. It has become completely pro-market and it has become pro-reforms and pro-growth... So fundamentally, we need to question whether this government or any other government can actually push a growth agenda at the cost of poor people."
Notice that the government needs to be questioned, but not the quixotic coterie that shapes some of its key policies. This is not just an instance of power without responsibility, but also of extreme self-righteousness. It is almost as though villains need to be invented since the reality has failed to conform to the plan chalked out by NAC. And what better than "pro-reforms and pro-growth" scapegoats?
The author is a freelance journalist
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
