Čisto da doprinesem temi iz akademske perspektive.
Vezano za političko-ekonomske reforme u Indiji u proteklih 20 godina i njihov ishod:
Citiraj:
Who has really reaped the benefits of the reforms?
India has always had a small number of afluent individuals, symbolized by its maharajahs and business tycoons. Now the proportion of the population that is rich has undoubtedly increased, and a substantial middle class has emerged, numbering anywhere between 200 million and 250 million, depending on the measure used. In what is fast becoming an emblem of the rising Indian middle class, six million cell phones are bought every month, making India the fastest-growing market for cell phones in the world. Businesses in the cities are booming, five-star hotels are fully booked, airports are clogged, and flights are regularly oversold.
At the same time, the begging bowls and emaciated faces of malnourished children, historically the most visible signs of mass deprivation on the streets of Indian cities, have not appreciably receded. Poverty has clearly decreased since the reforms began, when roughly a third of the country was below the poverty line, but close to a fourth of the population still lives on less than $1 a day, much to the disappointment of many reformers who had expected a faster decline. The nation’s growth on the whole has not been employment-intensive.
Where inequality is concerned, two issues are hotly debated: urban-rural imbalances and the interpersonal income distribution. Over the last ten years, India’s economy as a whole may have grown at more than 6 percent per annum, but agriculture, which still supports, fully or in part, around 60 percent of the country’s population, has grown at a mere 2.2 percent annually. To be sure, growth rates in agriculture are rarely as high as those in manufacturing and services, but the gap in India has become noticeably large. It is now widely accepted throughout India that urban-rural inequalities have grown since the reforms began.
The statistics on interpersonal income distribution are less conclusive, partly because such data tend to be highly unreliable for developing countries. But opinion polls make it quite clear that a very large proportion of the population believes the reforms have mostly benefited “the rich,” which in the public’s eye includes the middle class in India.
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