Industrialization in India does not benefit the poor

India's industrialization has played havoc with its poor. The juggernaut of industrialization leaves the great Indian middle class climbing aboard over the bodies of the struggling masses or staying out of the way. Today, the sign of destruction looms nowhere larger than in agriculture. India is dying rather than living in her villages. All natural resources such as land, water, forest, which used to be common property indispensable for people's survival, are being forcibly acquired by the state to be handed over to the TATAs, the Ambanis, POSCO, Coca-Cola, mining giants and others. This is often under the veil of non-transparent deals. The systematic onslaught by liberalization, privatization and globalization is being reinforced by the direct violence of the State to dispossess millions who live traditionally on a natural resource base. These poor populations are now condemned and continuously bulldozed for being poor in the name of some ‘illegality' or ‘encroachment' defined by the expropriators themselves. Make no mistake, if India do not industrialize, it will never be prosperous. The current form of industrialization which uses the principle of "exploitation for profits" has been there in the nation since independence. And yet, India has remained an overwhelmingly ‘poor' country. Three out of four Indians have a purchasing power of not more than Rs 20 per day. If we have to think of industrialization in democratic India, we cannot simply ignore this majority of our citizenry and their potential. Another nandigram can't be let loose. Industrialization may be helping shake off the caste rigidness but in that place it's filling another system… another social disparity… rich poor divide. The right question to ask, therefore, is not whether to industrialize or not, but industrialize for whom and how? We call for "participatory industrialization". Participatory industrialization would involve the poor and illiterate, who constitute the skilled and semi-skilled labor force, in their traditional environment. Through a productive full-employment program, they could become a propelling force for the creation and distribution of wealth. Existing livelihoods would not be destroyed in this process without people's consent, and would ensure that they can have not just a habitat but also an alternative livelihood. In the present Indian context this means that industry should come up on vacant and uncultivable land, while productivity of cultivable land should be increased. Decentralized, efficient and participatory management of land, water and tree-cover with human power can achieve this. The guidelines would be environmental sustainability, equity and justice monitored by wider institutions and agencies, who would work with unit tiers like the present Panchayat Raj, with suitable amendments to draw units on the basis of the eco-system boundaries. The legal first step is to actualize the 73rd Amendment with the help of Article 243 of the Constitution. This is the route through which the poor, rejected by today's industrialization, would enter the larger economy with dignity as both producers and consumers. The composition of our national output would change as we put the internal market, constituting many local economies and populated by the poor, at center stage. The composition of output produced in this manner at the local level would be much less intensive in its use of natural resources. To reduce the pace of mad urbanization that sucks enormous natural resources for a handful of rich, by dispossessing the poor and forcing migration to cities, is a related task which only this alternative can achieve. The domestic rather than the external market must occupy the centre of economic policy, with the purchasing power rising at a faster rate at the bottom than at the top of income distribution, and the market used by the poor for local exchanges to suit their needs and priorities. There are isolated experiments where local use of skills and resources has successfully withstood corporate competition. Development is the preferred option, provided the carrying capacity is available. There cannot be a trade-off at the cost of health and livelihoods of the silent majority and those who voice their grievances are christened NAXALITES OR MAOISTS. India's way is not Europe's; India is not Calcutta and Bombay. India lives in seven hundred thousand villages. Urbanization in India is slow but sure death for her villages and villagers. The time is ripe for a new beginning. JAI HIND!