Last week, I watched Gully Boy. The song “Doori” strongly
resonated with me. Was it the filming, the acting or the lyrics, I’ll never know.
I had a “woke” moment at the time and was left pondering over the concept of “Doori.
“Doori” means distance but in the song means “inequality” and is touchingly
portrayed.
Now, let me warn you, this piece doesn’t tell you something
you haven’t read/heard about in media in the past. But it simply tries to
reinforce some key points that somehow seems to escape the decision makers.
So, let me take you through my train of thought after the
song stopped playing
1)
Should a
country like India worry about inequality? – Hot topic in the global media
is “Inequality”. Questions on whether the rich must be taxed more and how the
marginal tax rates should be increased are the never-ending ongoing debates
which I’ve lost track of. But does India need to think about it right now? NOT
AT ALL. We don’t have the luxury or the time to do that. Get rich and get rich
fast – should be the focus of the state. Increase the size of the pie by making
opportunities available.
2)
How to get
rich fast? – By learning a lesson or 2 from China. Chinese economic reforms
brought the poverty down from 88% 4 decades ago to 6% in 2 years ago. This
massive downfall in poverty levels was achieved due to many experimental policies
and by primarily opening the country’s economy globally. I’m clearly
oversimplifying here and I’m obviously not qualified enough to handle a
question of this magnitude. However, I know we have a template. A template we
can learn from. A template tried and tested. A template, that is China.
3)
CURE the
problem: If there’s one thing I’ve learned after being a part of corporate,
reading books on effective communication – it is to come up with quirky, easy
to remember acronyms!
So, I came up with one – CURE: Collect,
Understand, Revise, Execute
Collect Quality data: Due
to the lack of good quality data, India struggles to get a handle on how
serious certain issues are. For ex: From fudging reports by NSSO (allegedly) to
outright denying it, the current government is failing to do enough about the
job crisis at hand. The demographic dividend is now a ticking bomb and no more
an asset that we posed it to be, globally. The inconsistency in the stories,
datasets of NSSO and EPFO tell us, is all the more a reason why we need more
serious discussions and actions on collection of more data. NSSO data is
collected once every 5 years, Census data – once every 10 years, the labour bureau’s
employment surveys last happened in 2015-16. CMIE (Center for Monitoring Indian
Economy) happens every year. But higher frequency, better quality data means
better analysis, right?
Understanding the gaps: Again
– oversimplifying this, but analyzing data from various sources will lead to a
better understanding about the variables at play that create or amplify the
problem. This will help us distinguish what needs attention from what could be
allowed to take a back seat.
Revise the laws: Labour
laws in India have been a roadblock in creating more feasible employment
opportunities over the years. Lack of medium size enterprises increase the
pressure on large size enterprises to employ people in high numbers that causes
unintended imbalances. Though this sector has been liberalized, there is scope
for a lot more and there are detailed analyses carried out on this subject
which are all linked towards the end of this article that I have read in the
past to fairly understand how deep rooted this issue really is.
Evaluate and Execute schemes: There have been a lot of discussions on “Minimum
income guarantee” and how all the “poor” would receive money from the government
every month to support them for basic food necessities. But I believe the root
of the problem is not addressed with schemes like this. Governments currently
and in the past have spent abysmal amount of money on subsidies and loan
waivers when the root cause for increasing job crisis is rapid urbanization and
asymmetry of information between the demand in skills and the supply of jobs. People
employed in agriculture are also quickly moving away, seeking jobs in cities. Integration
of this population in cities and their transition to non-agricultural jobs should
be made smooth – this must be the aim of any scheme that government of today plans
to introduce.
I’m not sure if “Doori” will go away any
time soon, but we have seen examples backed with enough evidence that it’s possible
to lift people out of poverty. We only need to pay attention and believe in
incremental measures to “CURE” this problem.
References:
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