Fifty years ago India's population was 350 million or so. Today it is
roughly three times. Percentages don't make much sense in the case of
large countries such as India. Now China is the other case but then we do
know some things do get shoved down people's throats. Yes, it's a shame,
the unequal distribution but the achievements of the Indian government,
for all its shortcomings, should not be underestimated. All you have to
do is compare the numbers with pre-independent India.
Anthony
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
http://tinyurl.com/yhjzrm
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On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
On 4/16/07, Anthony D'Costa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The rural folks in India want electricity, water, roads, and schools.
Without these they continue to suffer at the hands of landlords.
Could it be the other way around? It's (much of) the Indian Left's
historical decision not to attack the rural class/caste structures
head on that makes electricity, water, roads, and schools still
unavailable for many rural folks. That's what Roy, Indian Maoists,
and Hamza Alavi among others would say:
<http://www.zmag.org/roy.htm>
Power Politics
The reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin
Arundhati Roy
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Planners in India boast that India consumes 20 times more electricity
today than it did 50 years ago. They use it as an index of progress.
They omit to mention that 70 per cent of rural households still have
no electricity. In the poorest states, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa
and Rajasthan, over 85 per cent of the poorest people, mostly Dalit
and Adivasi households, have no electricity. What a shameful, shocking
record for the world's biggest democracy.
Unless this crisis is acknowledged and honestly addressed, generating
"lots and lots of power" (as Mr Welch put it) will only mean that it
will be siphoned off by the rich with their endless appetites. It will
require a very imaginative, very radical form of 'structural
adjustment' to right this.
--
Yoshie
