Letters: Rural paradox

Subir Roy's column "India remains mostly rural and poor" (July 15) highlights startling information from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) report. In the 68 years that India has been independent, and 46 years since the 1969 'garibi hatao' slogan of the Congress, successive governments have tried to improve the quality of life in rural society by promoting education and health measures. These are evident from literacy and longevity figures. However, they have created a paradox: despite better education, Indians now live poor longer. One reason is that most of the money meant for the uplift of the poor does not reach them, thanks to greedy middlemen, government officials and local politicians.

The other paradox is that land acquisition is being opposed for infrastructural, agricultural and industrial development in rural areas, even if this could benefit 38.1 per cent of the landless poor and nearly half the number of people, who do odd jobs. Mahatma Gandhi said that India cannot claim to be a free country when every Indian does not go to sleep with food. We seem to have failed this test so far. Yet, a positive feature of the SECC report is that it facilitated the preparation of a specific, state-focused poverty alleviation and job creation programme and road map. When the data for all 640 districts of the country are available, this could be of greater benefit.

Y G Chouksey Pune

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