People's Democracy

Decade and Half of Neoliberal Reforms and India�s Dying Children

Amit Sen Gupta

AN estimated Ten lakh children who died in 2006 in India would be alive today if they were living in the same conditions that one would find in Bangladesh. What people might find even more amazing is that over 25 lakh children who died in India would be alive today, if only they had the good fortune to be born in Nepal. Bought up on a daily diet of �feel good� stories about the �Great India Success Story� in the corporate controlled media, many would find the above to be almost beyond belief. Nepal and Bangladesh, after all, are not the best examples of progress and development. But the stark reality is that our two neighbors have actually done much better since 1990 in their attempt to protect the lives of young children.

HOLLOW CLAIMS OF NEOLIBERAL

GLOBALISATION EXPOSED

The hollow claims that neoliberal globalisation leads to better living conditions, is best exposed by the dissonance revealed when we compare standard parameters of economic growth with data related to child survival. Child survival data is acknowledged to be the most sensitive indicator of economic and social well being in a society. This is because children are the most vulnerable and any adverse conditions are reflected most accurately by the mortality (how many young children are dying) and morbidity (how many children are falling sick) figures related to children.

Let us examine some of the data from India, Bangladesh and Nepal related to economic growth and other developmental parameters, since the 1990s. The period is significant. As the drummer boys of neoliberal economic reforms in India never tire of telling us, these reforms were kick started in India by the (in)famous Manmohan Singh budget of 1992-93. If we compare the three countries in terms of standard economic parameters (change in per capita income based on purchasing power parity, i.e. the real purchasing power of the local currency), India is clearly seen to have done immensely better. From a situation in 1995 when the three countries were almost at the same level, in 2007 the per capita income in India is more than twice that of Bangladesh and more than two and half times that of Nepal.

Table 1: Economic Growth in India, Nepal and Bangladesh

1995-2007

Source: World Development Report, World Bank, 2009

One would expect that this level of rise in incomes would translate into poverty reduction on a significant scale. But data for 2005 shows that India and Bangladesh are roughly at the same level in terms of income poverty � 80.4 per cent in India and 84.0 per cent in Bangladesh subsist on less than two dollars per day. Nepal, in fact, is doing better, with 68.5 per cent of the people surviving on incomes of less than two dollars per day. Evidently, the great economic prosperity that India is supposed to be enjoying is restricted to a very small percentage of the population. Contrary to the widespread propaganda, in the area of poverty reduction, India is seen to be striving hard not to be outpaced by its South Asian neighbors!

That brings us back to the data regarding child survival and life expectancy, which we talk of in the beginning. The following table gives the progress made by the three South Asian countries in the last decade and a half.

Table 2: Comparison of Life Expectancy and Child survival data: India, Bangladesh and Nepal

Source: World Development Report, World Bank, 2009

In 2006 all the three countries are almost at the same level in terms of life expectancy at birth � that is a child born in any of the three countries in the region can, on an average, be expected to survive for approximately sixty-four years. If we compare with the figures for 1995, we see that life expectancy has improved by just over two years in India, while it has increased by six years in Bangladesh and by over eight years in Nepal.

Similarly, in 1990, the Under 5 mortality rate in India (that is the number of children who die before reaching the age of five, per 1,000 live births) was significantly lower than that of Bangladesh (24 points lower) and Nepal (27 points lower. In 2006 both Bangladesh and Nepal are significantly better off than India. Both these countries are better than India as regards the prevalence of child malnutrition as well.

INDIA TRAILS BEHIND

NEPAL AND BANGLADESH

The above data does not indicate that Nepal and Bangladesh are doing particularly well. In developed countries the life expectancy at birth is almost 78 � which means that an average person in the three countries in South Asia lives 14 years less than in developed countries. China has an average life expectancy of 72 and Vietnam of 71. Similarly, the Under Five Mortality rate in developed countries is around 5. What the data does indicate, however, is that India has been doing much worse than Nepal and Bangladesh in the post economic liberalisation era.

The data illustrates what people are articulating today, in no uncertain terms. Never before in independent India has �Development� been a despised word. Yet, today, people seem to be saying that they do not want development. Actually they are not really saying so. What people in many parts of the country are saying is that they do not want development if it means it is going to be of the kind that has been ushered in after neoliberal economic reforms in the country. It is a legitimate question that the government of the day needs to answer: if Bangladesh and Nepal, after having made very little apparent progress in terms of economic growth, can guarantee better lives to the bulk of their citizens, then of what use is such economic growth.

Clearly, we need to disentangle the notion of economic growth and development. As India�s experience clearly shows, economic growth under neoliberal economic policies does not translate into development that improves the lot of a vast majority of the people. Votaries of neoliberal economics have long argued about the benefits of the so called �trickle down� effect � translated into lay language the argument is that if the rich become richer, the poor shall also benefit. The experience of reforms of the past decade and a half has shown how hollow such a claim is. Yes, the rich in India have grown richer, and in many cases their economic progress has been unprecedented. But it has come at the expense of a large section of the working people of the country.

RETREAT OF THE STATE

WHILE CHILDREN DIE

If we need more evidence that the present trajectory of promoting economic growth and development is deeply flawed, a comparison between the three South Asian countries provides significant pointers. The Table below provides data regarding expenditure on Health and education in the three countries.

Table 3: Expenditure on Education and Health in

India, Bangladesh and Nepal

Source: Human Development Report, UNDP, 2008

Percentage of government expenditure on education has actually decreased in India in the era of neoliberal reforms. In the same period, allocation in both Nepal and Bangladesh has increased. All three countries perform poorly as regards allocation for Health (the WHO recommends that 5 per cent of GDP should be allocated for Health), but even here Nepal is doing much better than India. What the Indian figures do illustrate is a manifestation of one of the stated objectives of neoliberal reforms � the retreat of the state in providing welfare support to its population.

The retreat of the state manifests in the trend that we see in the following Table. Toady both Nepal and Bangladesh are doing much better in immunising children under five, and even in providing improved sanitation to their citizens.

Table 4: Immunisation and Sanitation facilities in

India, Bangladesh and Nepal

Source: Human Development Report, UNDP, 2008

Let us try to draw appropriate lessons from what we discuss above. The argument is not that Bangladesh and Nepal have done anything dramatic. Both countries have had governments that were interested in pursuing economic reforms of the kind that we see in India. The difference is, fortunately for these two countries, the strength of domestic capital in these countries have not been of the order where such reforms could be pursued as vigorously as in India. As a result, the state has continued to intervene to a larger degree than in India. Today, much of the improvements that we see across the world in mortality and life expectancy rates are a result of advances in science and technology. The latter provides us with tools, which if used for the benefit of the majority of the population, can make significant differences. The examples of Nepal and Bangladesh show that even in situations where gross inequities persist, focused interventions by the state can make a difference. Beyond a point such interventions will lose their ability to make further progress, if the issue of equity is also not addressed. The tragedy of post-reform India is that the India state has not even made this minimum effort to safeguard the lives of its people.