DEVELOPMENTAL DIVIDES

The Indian economy has indeed forged ahead in terms of economic growth since the 1980s and it cannot be denied that India has emerged one of the world's fastest growing economies. Endowed with a rich heritage, a young population, enviable resources, India seems to have a bright future in the economic front. it must also be borne in mind that India also has the distinction of acquiring considerable economic growth within the framework of a democracy. this is not the case for other countries that have registered economic growth.

In spite of this optimism, India is not without doubt and problems. Development instead of reaching out to all has only augmented inequalities. For growth has not encompassed all sectors of the Indian economy uniformly. Growth has on the whole been service specific and sectors like the primary small scale and cottage industries have witnessed slow and erratic progress.

Economic growth especially after the early years of privatization of the economy, and later with globalization taking full control, the toll of the people of the country has been both positive and negative. Nearly all areas of life have been globalized, but all said and done, growth has not been inclusive in nature. Growth has not accommodated all peoples across cultures, caste, class, gender creed and color etc.There seems to be a growing disquiet and discontent among many groups.The growth in the economy has not been accompanied by the provisioning of good public services such as health care, education, power supply, water and infrastructure to all its citizens. 

Instead of gaining rights and freedoms, the poor only find themselves more and more alienated and subjected to wider abuses and denial of basic rights. Both the access to and the ability to use the resources, if accessed are out rightly denied to them.Large number of individuals are trapped in poverty and face a life of debt, deprivation, disease and starvation.A great divide exists between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, men and women, the bourgeois and the proletariat, upper and lower castes, higher and lower classes. The urban sector as Michael Lipton puts it "possesses most of the articulations, organization, money and power" Resource allocations between the dogs and the underdogs have always prioritized the needs and aspirations of the former. Elites in the country aided largely by global business view globalization as an opportunity to exploit the poor more effectively.Is it not true that one of the so called the resources of the nation is the continuous existence and nurturing of the poor, the marginalized and the powerless to remain thus? there seems to be an urgent need for them to exist in this state so that the others can rise the corporate ladder by using them as the  rugs. Has development not fostered and enlarged divisions in the economy? Should growth not be shared more equally? For, the question that stares us in the face is "growth for whom"? In this context what our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said comes to bear great relevance - " It is important that as a country we learn to walk on two legs, one embracing the process of high growth and the other on economic development to the marginalized."

It is important that we look at the ideology and paradigm of development and growth in the country, the impact of reforms, result of the ongoing economic growth and the losers and gainers in this scenario.

 The task for economists and policy makers is indeed daunting.The need of the hour is the joint effort of focused ,  honest, and selfless individuals - A resource we truly lack in our country!

~~~Crystal David John

A TRIBUTE TO PROFESSOR VERA AUGUSTUS

Prof Vera Augustus worked with me for 6 years in CReNIEO and Gurukul in Chennai. We worked together  framing the syllabus for the Woman's Studies Department in Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Center. It was indeed a wonderful learning experience for me - a young faculty, with such a senior, erudite and well accomplished  professor. I treasure the opportunity given to me by God above. No class room learning, no degree per se could ever substitute the selfless teaching mechanism Prof Vera Augustus had in her ways of working and dealing with young faculty members like me. When she passed away on the 15th of August 1999, I realized that i had lost a good friend and teacher. Not to this day have I met any other person ( other than my dear parents and a few others like some of my teachers and Dr. Adella Paul) who has gone the extra mile to teach another, to impart knowledge and share all expertise. The world of Academics, sad to say is a wicked, hypocritical and selfish world. However few gems such as Prof. Vera Augustus shine forth. May her soul ever rest in peace! People may wonder why i am writing this 14 years after she expired - well it is for two reasons 1. I found the script of my talk during the thanks giving service 2. i have yet to meet such a sincere person to work with in academics where i find a whole lot of charlatans and lip service givers!!!

On the 21st of August 1999 GLTC conducted a thanksgiving service to commemorate the  work and life of prof. They asked me to speak during this service. Following is what i spoke:

I first met Prof. Vera Augustus in the late 1980s in Women's Christian College, Chennai when she was introduced to me by my sister's (Dr. Beulah Rajkumar) colleague ( Ms. Anna Abraham) of Lady Doak College, Madurai. I had then gone to Prof Augustus to get some details regarding the status of women, for my Ph.D. program. However, since her subject was History and mine is Economics, she felt she could not fully assist me, and hence sent me to another professor who is an economist.I was a total stranger to Prof. Vera Augustus, yet she went all out to help me.Later on when I came down south to Chennai from Lucknow and joined as faculty in CReNIEO and Gurukul, I met her again - this time she was my colleague in the Department of Women's Studies and soon she became my very good friend! This started my 6 year long association with Prof. Vera Augustus- An experience and friendship I will value for life!

An erudite individual she had so much of knowledge one could just not imagine. She was then my Google search -- you ask her anything ans she knew it - I did not even have to click a button. Not only this but immediately or just the next day she would get you all the references/books/clippings and discussions related to the topic in question! You name a doubt - she had an answer or a very relevant comment.There were very few authors she had not read, and by my association with her i got to know of so many more authors that I  had not read. I used to play a kind of game with her and ask her have you read this or that? nearly always her answer was yes, and if at all she had not read the book, she would pester me to get her that book and read it within a day, and then return it to me with her critique! This game of mine often humbled me as I realized how much I did not know. A Ph.D. degree does not definitely guarantee you with this kind of knowledge, it is no criteria at all. In fact Prof. Vera Augustus was an MA in History - not a Ph.D. holder! I am truly indebted to her as i have learnt such a lot from her, especially in the field of Women's Studies - A Champion of Women's Concerns she was attached to many NGOs in the city of Chennai.She always campaigned that Women's studies should be action oriented, besides having a rigorous theoretical component attached.

Ma'am was a walking encyclopedia - any clarification that was needed we would be drawn to her like a magnet. She was also the news paper for many individuals in college. If one had not had the time to scan the paper in the morning, a brief encounter with her would be enough. 

She was always ready to help yet she was never bossy. She knew so much had such a storehouse of information in her computerized brain, yet she was extremely humble. She had the wonderful ability to see good things in unexpected places and talents in unexpected people. She never ever projected herself, even though she was fully equipped to do so. 

She was also a special friend to my little daughter - she had so many baby books for her to read -- her name in my daughter's baby vocabulary was 'Gurukul Grandma'. 

An extremely conscientious person, she would never leave anything undone.However tired or sick she was she would always insist that we sit and finish what we had begun. Even as she became weaker she fought all ailments and worked relentlessly.

An extremely meticulous person with a fantastic memory she was good at any thing she laid her hands upon. From writing poetry and setting it to music to Origami, from knowledge about plants and the environment to politics and sports, from philosophies and realities - she knew it all. So versatile was she, that very often we at Gurukul were awe struck. Her vast interests, experience, capabilities and above all the desire to share it all, drew her into many committees and she willingly helped. So interested was she in her world of academics that she tended to neglect her health. Even when so many times I advised her to look after her health she kept telling me she was all right. Since my mother is a cancer patient I even told her 'Ma'am I think you have cancer' and she laughed and said "I like the way you are so straight forward" Even when she decided to got to Mangalore for the symposium with all of us towards the end of July 1999, he rill health did not seem to bother her. A number of times she told me that her trip to Mangalore had done her so much of good. Whether it did good to her or no, it surely did us a lot of good as we enjoyed her response to the papers presented there.

After her return from Mangalore when she took so ill that she would only cough and cough, she told me that all along I was right and that she did have a lump in her breast, for a very long time. She just could not eat and so I rushed out of the little staff room we shared in Gurukul, and got her a cup of soup to have, which she enjoyed. She then took me to her room on campus and gave me two books from British Council Library and requested me to return the same. Even in such distress she highlighted to me another of her treasured quality - Absolute Honesty. I took the books and that evening I returned them. Even when she left college on the 4th of August after her health condition was diagnosed, she did not tell me any thing about her health but gave me an outline that she had drawn up for the foreign students who would be coming to Gurukul, and requested me to hand it over to the Rev. Mani Chacko. Till the end she laboured and shamed many of us all along!

When she was admitted in hospital and I went to see her, she held my hand  and told me -- "Crystal it is Cancer -- you were clearly right all along" and then she asked me if I returned the books and I told her - 'yes' - she just smiled and said 'bye' - that was the last I heard her say for on the 15th I got the news that with the first Chemo she suffered a heart attack and went to be with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Speaking on behalf of Gurukul, I can only say that we will miss her tremendously. It has been said that no one is indispensable - but I do have a feeling that the gap ma'am leaves behind will not be ever sufficiently filled!

INVISIBLE HANDS!

Knowledge is based on experience and experience is never gender neutral. Hence it is imperative that any body of knowledge must be inclusive of the experiences of the entire human population. Looking at the experience of only one half of the human race leads to the generation of fractional knowledge. Economics is a victim, so to say, of such partial knowledge, much of its analysis being largely a reflection of men’s experiences and an echo of men’s voices. In short Economics is largely androcentric and has been profoundly prejudiced by the ‘high value’ masculine attitude. This is evident from the very assumptions in the subject which is then bolstered together by male centered methodology.

Economics is based on the concept of cut throat competition and is obsessed with the profit motive. The classical writers like Adam Smith defined the capitalist market system and spoke vividly about the market mechanism which was termed the operation of the ‘invisible hand’…well the title of my article however does not suggest the working of this invisible hand (which is nothing but the price/market mechanism) which drives every decision in the jungle of wild competitors. What I intend to highlight is the working of the invisible economy which operates because of the invisible hands that drives it. No one sees them work - a population largely taken for granted, sidelined and under-represented in the national income accounts. Well I mean none other than THE WOMAN.
Since much of women’s labour is not marketed and economics specializes in the market economy, they get sidelined. They “labour for love” and this labour cannot be monetized. However the very fact that women work in this manner enables the man to be the bread winner. This however is not recognized. If these women did not exist or did no such labour out of love all household work like cooking caring cleaning (the therefore three Cs), or work such as provisioning for food fodder and fuel(the three Fs) would have to be paid for. Technically speaking therefore women are providing what one can term as LMC or Lifetime Maintenance Contract for their families. If it were not for the social costs they bear it would become extremely expensive for the man to be the breadwinner. In the real world there is a constant interplay between the production economy and the economy concerned with rendering reproduction, care and human welfare. Diane Elson has fittingly defined this, “we have two economies: the economy in which people earn wages in order to produce things to be sold on the market or financed through taxation. This is the economy based on goods, which every one considers ‘the economy’. On the other hand we have the veiled economy, the invisible one, the one devoted to care” What separates the two economies is the fact that domestic work is tremendously unwieldy to compute. Such work is generally carried out by girls and women inside the house and is only indirectly connected to the market. It is synchronized by ideologies, traditional, cultural and religious norms and of the society and is not assigned any pecuniary value. Household work is largely indivisible and not paid for. Indivisibility is coupled with patriarchal ideologies wherein only women are allocated the responsibility of providing the nurture and maintenance of the household. All such work which forms the major part of the embodiment of human capital is not accounted for at all - after all it is embodiment that flows from love, and love will not remain love if it is monetized!!!
Further even if they work for wages it is largely in the unorganized sector where again there are lacunae in the counting of the work done by them. Women hence get left out since much of their labour is contributed to the unorganized sector. It is non remunerative as there is an abundance of such labour available to perform such tasks freely. Very often women are the major or the only breadwinners in their families. However the meaning of the term worker tends to omit part time and seasonal workers, hence such women get counted out. These women are therefore veiled in data as portrayed by Ela Bhatt when she coined the term ‘Statistical Purdah’ to explain how women workers are under counted by the census and NSSO operations in India. These are the invisible hands in reality!! Not the market mechanism as promulgated by Adam Smith! Women’s work has always been looked at as secondary. Workers who earn just pin money. Yet without this contribution many a home will crumble under the yoke of insufficient finance. Many a home will come to a stand still if these invisible hands stop working! But ‘love’ will not stop these hands! Should I say love that is voluntary or love that is imposed artificially by moral cultural and traditional codes!
For most people and also the average enumerators women normally are housewives even if they work outside their homes for wages. Though the Census the NSSO and the ILO have widened the definition of the worker to include many tasks done by women, yet the mindset of such officials and policy makers needs total overhauling! There has to be the consciousness within these data office workers, as well as theorists and policy makers to recognize and accept women as equally productive workers. There has to be a revolution in the thinking process of both men and women.
If the working of the invisible hand is extolled on a pedestal in the Smithian system, is it not just and fair that these INVISIBLE HANDS are also duly recognized, for the work they do to keep the cogs of the economy functioning smoothly?

Dr. Crystal David John

Post Graduate Head

Dept. of Economics

Stella Maris College

Chennai 600 086