Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Rich vs Poor battle in INDIA

This battle between the rich and the poor has been on since time immemorial, but I feel now is the right time for we urban Indians to do something about it. Its almost the end of the year 2007 and its been more than one-and-half decade since India embraced globalization, there has been no inclusive growth ever since to say the least. I feel its the right time because in the last decade the nation was new to the free market world, now people have got hang of how the stuff works and its come to stage where things have almost begun to run slowly on their own.

I am basically concerned about the growing disparity in the income levels of the two ends of the society. Yes it is an issue to be concerned because the rich are becoming more rich and the poor are struggling even for one square meal a day, this is not fair. The Urban Educated Class are slowly segmenting themselves in the category of rich, by their spending habits(though by plastic money) and the lifestyle they are leading with a car or two, 2-3 two wheelers in their possession.
And on the other hand there is this poor farmer who is not even able to invest money to sow the seeds in his farm land, for which he has to borrow money from the local money lenders with heavy interest rates, there is no guarantee of a good yield because of changing climatic patterns, he has very little to choose from. No wonder the suicide rates of farmer in the Deccan Plateau is increasing at an alarming rate, but hardly has anything been done by the respective governments other than forming "Committee"s to study the problem and announcing "Package"s.

I agree that the Urban Educated Class have struggled to reach the position we are in, one might say we have done that by sheer talent, skills and hard work without any aid from the government.
Well I don't deny that fact. I am more concerned about this because there have been instances of pseudo wars between the well to do and not so well to do, let me cite an example: there have been instances where people have been robbed(modus operandi: stop the vehicle, catch them unaware rob them of any gold, take them to the nearest ATM threaten the victim to withdraw cash, beat him/her up) in both outer ring road and intermediate ring road, the victims are invariably those returning home from their swanky offices located in outskirts of Bangalore. I am afraid of the time when they will call themselves as "modern day Robinhoods" and continue to loot people. This is happening because of the income gap, we might argue that it was their fault for not being educated enough to land them in good jobs, there is equal amount of truth and lie in the argument, because it is always the society that is responsible for its state.

All I am pressing for is Inclusive Growth of the nation, we the people have a great responsibility on our shoulders. We have a big job to do, else I am afraid the cities will burn due to unrest and rising tempers of the people. Wake up fast.