News Analysis |
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Monday said that the states in India’s southern and western region were growing rapidly, but those like Bihar, UP and Chattisgarh were keeping the country backward.
Speaking at the first Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan Memorial Lecture at Jamia Millia Islamia University, Kant said, “Eastern part of India particularly states like Bihar, UP, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan is keeping India backward especially on social indicators. While we have improved on ease of doing business, we have remained backward on human development index. We are still 131 out of 188 countries in HDI.”
Talking on ‘Challenges of Transforming India,’ Kant said the southern and western part of India were doing reasonably well and growing rapidly. And when the country’s HDI has to improve and we have to focus on these social indicators. We are working on these things through Aspirational Districts Programme,” he said.
The HDI is a composite index which assesses the social and economic development levels of a country. This ranks the country in four principal areas: mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, life expectancy and per capita income. The latest HDI report, which was released in 2017, placed India at 131st position among the 188 countries.
The concept of insurgency/militancy is extremely low (though India has nearly been torn into two due to the Naxalite insurgency ) but then South does bear equal amount of cost, personnel in “maintaining” the “Unity and Integrity” of the nation.
The Niti Aayog chief said that the government was working on these social indicators through Aspirational Districts Programme to improve country’s development index.
He said: “Education and health are critical and these are areas in which India is lagging behind. Our learning outcomes are poor – a class 5 student is not able to do class 2 subtraction. Class 5 student is not able to read his mother tongue. Infant mortality rates are very high. Unless we improve on these aspects, it will be difficult to grow in a consistent way.”
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Various reports in past have revealed that Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have poor literacy rates. According to Census 2011, Bihar had a literacy rate of 61.8 percent, Uttar Pradesh of 67.7 percent, Rajasthan of 67.1 percent and Madhya Pradesh of 70.6 percent.
Last year, an independent report asserted that in Madhya Pradesh, as few as 34.1 percent of children in class 5 could read a class 2 textbook and in Rajasthan, only 45.9 percent of children in class 5 could subtract.
NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Monday said that the states in India’s southern and western region were growing rapidly, but those like Bihar, UP and Chattisgarh were keeping the country backward.
Kants’s statements give an economic dimension to the internal divide inside India. While India is portrayed as a single nation it has to be understood that India is not ‘a nation’. The public generally thinks that the nation and country as one entity. However, these two are very different things. Nation is associated with people, whereas country is associated with the geographical and political unit. Historically India has been divided into Northeastern, Western and South India. This division is not solely on the basis of geography but also on the basis of cultural roots. Western India also called the Hindi belt is the majority of the nation has its roots in Gangetic civilization which puts it at odds with the Dravidian South and Indochinese Northeast.
The divide also flows into socioeconomic considerations. The North has too much population which is extremely is divided, notorious, poverty ridden. About 16% of Indian population lives in the states of UP and Bihar.
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The educational levels and maturity is far higher in southern India rather than in North. South Indian states are more matured as well as self-reliant. The South is more peaceful and has been effected communally because of divisive politics from north leaders
The development is easier in South rather than the North as people in the south are desirous of it even though they are dominated by the Northern states in the political sphere. The concept of insurgency/militancy is extremely low (though India has nearly been torn into two due to the Naxalite insurgency ) but then South does bear the equal amount of cost, personnel in “maintaining” the “Unity and Integrity” of the nation.
The South has separate system of rivers, plains, mountains, coast, minerals and many Indian thermal powers are significantly run by the coal from South. It is apparent that the drain on resources caused by “failed” states such as those mentioned above are likely to put a dent on Indian cohesion which is already riven with different separatist movements.