At best, the state has a few islands of prosperity in a sea of despair. The
situation, in terms of poverty, corruption and crime, is dire, revealing the
skewed priorities of Maharashtra’s ruling elite Ironically, in this age when
state governments have become more competitive, the one state that was
ideally placed to exploit the opening up of the economy is losing out.
rajdeep sardesai
BEYOND THE BYTE A JOURNALIST friend from Patna was recently transferred to
Mumbai. During his many years in Bihar, I had often wondered how he coped
with a daily dose of murder, kidnapping, death, disease (and of course,
Lalu). “This is Bihar, my friend, not your Maharashtra!” he would remind me.
A few days ago, soon after the Malegaon blasts, he smsed: “Your Maharashtra
has become like my Bihar!” Even allowing for a little exaggeration, the
‘Biharisation’ of Maharashtra is no longer a flight of fancy. Sure,
Maharashtra is not a basket case, but cut through the legacy of social
progressiveness and rapid industrialisation, and the bright lights of the
MumbaiPune-Nasik golden triangle rapidly begin to dim. The glitter of
corporate India cannot mask the fact that many parts of the Western Ghats
increasingly resemble the violent chaos and deprivation that characterises
large swathes of the Gangetic plains.
Poverty? Bihar’s poverty figures are undoubtedly much higher, but several
districts in Maharashtra can be statistically compared to the Bimaru belt.
Maharashtra is India’s most industrialised state, contributing almost 14 per
cent of the national industrial output. More than 50 per cent of the state’s
gross domestic product is accounted for by the MumbaiThane-Pune industrial
belt. But the much higher per capita income of Maharashtra cannot mask the
ever-sharpening intraregional inequalities. Just step a 100 km outside
Mumbai into Thane’s Jawahar taluka and you will encounter tribal children
who are dying of starvation. An affidavit filed in the Bombay High Court
last year claimed that as many as 35,000 children in Melghat in Amravati
district were severely malnourished, and more than 5,000 had died in the
last decade.
Unemployment? Yes, in absolute terms, unemployment is much higher in Bihar,
but the rate of growth of unemployment in Maharashtra has steadily crept up.
It is now officially 7 per cent, with five lakh unemployed persons being
added to the list every year. The employment guarantee scheme, which was
once celebrated as a model for the rest of the country, is now a classic
case of how State-sponsored schemes can go horribly wrong. And, while the
service sector grows, the noisy malls cannot mask the fact that Mumbai’s
textile mills have fallen silent, as indeed have the looms of Malegaon and
Bhiwandi.
Agrarian distress? Even given the plight of the marginal farmer in Bihar,
fewer farmers commit suicide in Bihar than in Maharashtra. This, in a state
where almost 65 per cent of the population is still dependent on agriculture
and allied activities. The figures given by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti
are truly staggering. Since June last year, more than 800 cotton farmers
have reportedly committed suicide, with nearly 200 doing so in the last
eight weeks alone, after the Prime Minister visited Vidarbha and announced a
relief package. Take away the rural prosperity of the sugarcane farmers of
western Maharashtra, and the incomes of the state’s agrarian sector shows a
sharp decline in every other region. Not surprising as even now, more than
60 per cent of the irrigated area is the monopoly of the
politically-influential sugar belt.
Economic mismanagement? Bihar’s treasury may be empty, but Maharashtra, too,
has little to be proud of. The state’s debt has now reached a staggering Rs
1.15 lakh crore and its fiscal deficit has risen sharply from 2.8 per cent
of the GDP in the early Nineties to 5.8 per cent at the turn of the century.
While revenue expenditure grew at an average of 15 per cent per annum during
the last decade, capital outlays increased by just 4 per cent. You have
heard of teachers not being paid salaries for years in Bihar? Well, in
Maharashtra, too, the state government is finding it difficult to pay their
professors on time.
Collapsing infrastructure? Maharashtra’s roads are closer to resembling Hema
Malini’s cheeks than Bihar’s ever will be. But again, the shining
Mumbai-Pune highway does not quite tell the story of the remote corners of
the state or, for that matter, Mumbai city itself, whose potholed roads have
now become not just the matter of a public interest litigation, but a
national joke. Mumbai’s crumbling infrastructure, in fact, is symbolic of a
State machinery that has simply been unable to meet the challenges of the
time. While it is unlikely that you will ever confront the power cuts in
Maharashtra that are taken for granted across Bihar, the fact is that in a
once power-surplus state, the state electricity board has had to resort to
widespread load-shedding. Travel across Marathwada or Vidarbha, and six- to
10-hour power cuts are routine. Even in ur ban pockets, two hours of power
cuts are now par for the course.
Crime? Okay, so doctors are not kidnapped every day in Maharashtra, but
while Bihar’s goons operate in a more primitive environment of capital
accumulation, Mumbai’s underworld has developed far more sophisticated means
of running mafia-like operations, be it in managing real estate or in
controlling extortion rackets. Worse, while Bihar’s criminals might still
use the oldfashioned gupti, Mumbai’s dons have brought in the AK-47 culture
into the heart of the state. From Haji Mastan to Dawood Ibrahim to the
terror gangs of today, the criminalisation of the state has moved from
smuggling gold to smuggling RDX with ridiculous ease. That no other city in
the world has seen as many terror attacks as Mumbai in the last decade is
further proof that the state’s coastline is now an arms-friendly
destination.
Naxalism? We have not had a Jehanabad-like audacious strike in Maharashtra,
but the geography of Naxalism does have the state’s border districts of
Gadchiroli and Chandrapur as important centres. The base may be small, but
the fact is that there is a corner of Maharashtra where Naxal groups have a
persistent influence.
Social harmony? While Maharashtra prides itself on the PhuleShahu-Ambedkar
legacy as having defeated the forces of casteism, the state has unleashed a
Frankenstein’s monster in the shape of communalism. Caste may be the
dominant divide in Bihar, but Maharashtra is now increasingly community
consciousness. The rise of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance through the Nineties
is testimony that Maharashtra’s polity has been susceptible to communal
agendas. The subsequent rise of local Muslim extremist groups – many of them
linked to terror outfits – is proof of how a vicious cycle of hatred and
revenge can rapidly spiral out of control. If there has not been communal
violence after the Mumbai and Malegaon blasts, it is not because of the
state’s secular spirit, but simply because a mix of fear and fatigue has
left the average citizen feeling helpless.
Declining political culture? Bihar’s politicians may be stigmatised as
populist and corrupt, but Maharashtra’s new breed are not very different.
From the disastrous handling of the Dabhol project to the idiotic campaign
against dance bars, the state’s ruling elites have shown a knack of getting
their priorities misplaced. As for corruption, let us get it straight: the
Rs 30,000 crore Telgi stamp scam that flourished under successive
Maharashtra governments makes Lalu’s fodder scam seem like loose change.
Most top Maharashtra politicians today are either real estate sharks or
cooperative chieftains, and often both. In no other state have the means of
rural and urban capital been so effectively linked, manipulated and
monopolised by a handful of leaders as in contemporary Maharashtra. Is it
any wonder that some of the wealthiest politicians in the country come from
the state?
Indeed, islands of prosperity amidst a growing sea of despair is how one
must see Maharashtra. It is ironic that in this age, when state governments
have become more competitive, the one state that was ideally placed to
exploit the opening up of the economy should be losing out. My journalist
friend from Bihar often used to contrast the present crisis of Patna with
the glories of the Pataliputra empire. Maybe, Maharashtra, too, is now
caught in a time warp, surviving on past splendour and not on present
accomplishments.
The writer is Editor-in-Chief, CNN-IBN and IBN 7 sardesai.rajdeep@gmail.com
URL :
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=15_09_2006_011_004&typ=0&pub=264