Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

Never mind all that garbage, Mr Gujral

The figures claw at you off the pages, almost physical in the way they demand your attention. All are dismaying, as such figures usually are. But to me, one sticks out more than all the rest.

This is it, bland and bald: 71 per cent of Indians live without access to sanitation.

That's toilets. That's seven of every ten Indians who must use the fields, or open drains, or the side of the road, or -- this particular facility is available down the road from where I live -- the rocks at low tide.

Few things can be more degrading than having to defecate in public. Yet only three of every ten Indians escapes that shame.

Mahbub-ul Haq, the Pakistani economist, has made something of a career out of holding truths like these up to our faces. His most recent attempt -- his new Human Development in South Asia report whose figures I'm talking about -- is no exception. Filled with figures his reports certainly are. But above all, they are fervent appeals to all governments in the region, India and Pakistan in particular, to begin addressing their people's miseries.

In India, Haq's report was curiously well-timed. It hit the news about the time we found ourselves a new prime minister. And while prime ministers, especially the new ones, are prone to saying things they don't mean, this one said at least a few things nobody before him was ever heard saying.

In fact, one thing he said fit quite nicely with the figure I quoted earlier. "Seventy per cent of our population," Inder Kumar Gujral told the Times of India, "are outside the glow of prosperity. We can't focus only on the remaining 30 per cent or else we'll be sitting on a powder keg." I like to think he was talking about Mahbub-ul Haq's 70 per cent, some of whom I see at low tide.

Gujral also told the Times: "I want to reorient our security policies so that they are based not just on the Army or the Air Force, but on internal stability. ... Internal stability is enhanced when we accept and rely on the diversity of India." And, for good measure: "In this 50th year of Independence, we must pay attention to social justice."

The proof lies in the eating, Mr Gujral. You will allow me some scepticism for just now. But I am encouraged you at least talk in language our country doesn't hear much these days.

Oh yes, I am encouraged to hear my prime minister say Indian security means its people, first and foremost. We can buy up all the Bofors guns in the world, stick ready-to-fire nuclear missiles in every high-rise, every zilla parishad office in the country. But how secure are these gizmos making the lives of the people who have to wait for low tide? What is security if not the security of our lives? And if the majority of us live miserable lives, what security is that?

These are the questions I think Gujral wants to address. Trouble is, he likely won't have much support in Parliament.

Consider: such gems as Mulayam, Laloo, Kanshi and Mayawati have been calling themselves the champions of social justice for years. Look where that has got their states. UP and Bihar have become -- I'll be kind here -- filthy, shabby excuses for places to live a normal, law-abiding, secure life.

Take the Bharatiya Janata Party, whose trishul-carriers scream non-stop in our ears we have not fulfilled that Constitutional requirement, a Uniform Civil Code. Therefore, the screams continue, everyone but Hindus is being pampered. Of the minimal truth in that, another time. But the BJP has not once so much as mentioned another little excerpt from the Constitution. One with infinitely greater import for the future of our country, one that keeps most Hindus -- most Indians, come to think of it -- wallowing in ignorance and ill-health, one that has also been utterly ignored. That's the directive "to provide free and compulsory primary education within ten years of the framing of the Constitution." The BJP never has time for this.

Take the Congress, whose entire agenda today I can fit into the seven words that follow this colon: keep the law off our criminal backs.

You see? From some in the United Front, through the earlier government-wallahs, to the Opposition that lusts for power, it's next to impossible to find people who will understand and have time for, let alone support, what Gujral says. They have conditioned themselves to laugh it off as irrelevant and absurd. As they know they must, because if his words ever translate into reality, these people might be out on their ears.

An educated and healthy population is the only way to build prosperity, to sustain any kind of economic growth. The equation is that simple. So simple, you'd think we might have pursued it over the last 50 years. Still, we can start now.

For example, to get all our children into school over the next ten years, we need to build 1.3 million classrooms. Keeping them in school is something else altogether, as is employing the men and women who will teach them. Besides, spending on social measures is only the beginning. We have also to make sure that spending reaches those it is intended for, instead of pockets already lined many times over. As Swaminathan Aiyar pointed out in a recent column, that means major bureaucratic reform. These are all hard jobs, but each day they are neglected, they just get harder.

If our new prime minister shows signs of getting down to them, he deserves not just applause, but support. He needs his hands strengthened so he can stick to the task. I feel little optimism he will get that from his Parliamentary colleagues, preoccupied as they are with scams and Hindu revival.

That's why I'm writing about it here, to drum up some support from you. You know who you are. Consider writing a note to Gujral to tell him you want him to concentrate, above all else, on that social justice he spoke of. If enough of you do that -- no harm in a little optimism here -- we might just see those MPs picking up the issues as well. If that happens, and if Gujral is able to make even a tiny dent in the human problems that face us, he will be by far the greatest man ever to lead this country. More important, he will have made a difference to hundreds of millions of Indian lives. It's a big goal, but one just too long sidetracked.

"Internal stability": I like that, Mr Gujral. I think this famous 50th year is a good time for us to say: never mind Pakistan, never mind China, never mind CTBT, never mind a permanent seat on the Security Council. Never mind all that garbage, it can all wait.

Let's first get down to the only national priority there is: lifting our own people up from the mess we have condemned them to. Let's first bring about some stability in those millions of lives.

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