Opinion
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A matter of rights
BY CALLING FOR a focus on the human rights of the weaker sections, the President, Mr. K. R. Narayanan, has made a timely intervention in the country's social discourse. It is rather convenient to discover instances of violation of human rights when it comes to the more visible victims; but the unspoken denial of such rights to the deprived and excluded sections - particularly those who eke out an existence amidst squalor - requires urgent and comprehensive correctives. To continue in a similar vein, the violation of political rights is much easier to identify and cure, compared to the denial of economic and social rights. If India's experiments with planning had one common denominator - the uplift of the downtrodden - they have also had one common failing: the inability to effectively address issues relating to poverty. It is in this systemic failure that much of the cause for the continued neglect of the weaker sections lies. It is also important to enlarge the way human rights is looked at - not just through the legal mirror, but with a more broad and encompassing social vision.
To a large extent the empiricist viewpoint of addressing poverty - through Government-determined physical targets and through monetary measures of subsistence - has deflected the attention from important issues. These include intangible elements such as vulnerability and insecurity. The continued denial of these basic rights, considered natural even by the early thinkers, does not come as a good augury. As much as economic living is a matter of structures and ideologies, it is also a matter of governance. In its own way governance in India - especially some of the distortions in economic governance - has only entrenched the denial. It is, therefore, crucial that a clear departure is made from the ills of the past and the focus of the future is on the creation of a society that provides the opportunity for the millions of the deprived and the weaker sections to stake a claim to decent livelihood. Some specific issues have, no doubt, engaged public attention: particularly, the denial of rights for women and children. It will also be appropriate to recognise that a considerable part of the denial, especially in the case of women and the girl-child, has its moorings in the social setting. Indeed, India has the advantage of the inroads made by early reformers. The challenge now is to ensure that the past efforts are not diluted.
Covenants and institutions largely direct the conceptual and structural aspects of human rights. To make these more than well-intentioned ideals and grand edifices of a society requires focused efforts to improve the physical condition of the weaker sections. Given the structural transformation that India's economy is going through, the need to specifically address the requirements of the poorer sections is more critical. Now is also the moment to put in place some basic attributes of good economic governance. This will mean creating the setting that enhances the economic opportunities for the poor. The shifts in public expenditure towards basic and enduring strengths such as health, education and infrastructure would have to be done, howsoever difficult the choices ahead may seem. If there is one important lesson from history it is that societies that continue to deny basic economic rights to an overwhelming majority are prone to severe, if not always violent, internal correctives. India may stake several claims to fame. That it has the largest concentration of poor people in the world - 240 million rural and 72 million urban - is one it will do well to erase. Iniquitous policies and skewed perspectives are luxuries that India's poor and weaker sections can ill-afford.
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