It was heartening to watch debates on poverty in India on TV news channels, particularly the English ones. Elitist in approach, they seldom deliberate privations of the common man. Likewise, the English press is reluctant to carry news or write-ups on poverty because it has come to believe that its well-to-do readers do not want to know about the extent of poverty at the breakfast table. The Hindi and other language papers are more sensitive. This is probably the difference between India and ‘Bharat’.

Yet the nation cannot run away from the fact that roughly 65 per cent of Indians are poor, 35 per cent of them destitute. After projecting the Planning Commission’s criteria for expenditure as Rs24 (Dh1.44) in villages and Rs 33 in urban areas, the Indian government has realised that the amount is too paltry to convince even the most gullible.

Now, the average has been set at around Rs50. This sum is also meagre. Yet some leading Congressmen have tried to trivialise poverty by proclaiming that one can have a full, hearty meal for Rs5 in Delhi and Rs12 in Mumbai. According to the Planning Commission — seldom correct — poverty has been reduced to 22 per cent. The Commission, a creature of the ruling Congress, gives credit for this to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government.

The Planning Commission’s Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia says that the reduction of poverty during the BJP-led coalition rule was 0.8 per cent while it is going down by 2.5 per cent annually since the Congress took over. Assuming that the reduction to 22 per cent is correct, one out of every five Indians is still poor. This is a dismal record in the last six and a half decades since independence. If you were to add dimensions, other than food, you end up comparing India with backward countries in Africa.

The Congress has been in power for at least 50 of those years and must accept the greatest blame for the mess in which the country is today. Poverty and education, both neglected by the British, should have topped the party’s agenda. An undertaking given on social justice during the independence struggle remains on paper. So do the constitutional provisions on equal opportunities.

Singh, an eminent economist, was expected to put India’s house in order, but he has been a failure. The growth rate in the last two years is less than the proverbial Hindu growth rate of 3.5 to 4 per cent, although the overall average in the last decade is 5.5 per cent, reportedly next to China’s, an economic powerhouse. Singh has turned out to be more of a politician than an economist. This is proved by the fact that he has managed to be the prime minister for nearly a decade.

India’s poor performance is not due to global factors as ascribed by pro-establishment economists, but because of poor governance. The fact is that Indians are spending more than they are earning. Inflation has been galloping. Printing of currency notes, if at all a short-term relief, is not a solution. The paucity of funds is sought to be addressed by panicky measures.

Take the concessions offered to foreign investors — 49 per cent foreign direct investment in the insurance and oil and gas sectors. These measures have been compared to opening the floodgates. Instead of self-sufficiency, the cardinal principle after independence, foreign investment has become the mantra. Then, foreign investment was welcome in technical or other sectors in which India lacked expertise. Now any sector is good enough if it attracts foreign investors. And still they want more concessions.

Bureaucrats, more than politicians, must take responsibility for this state of affairs. They too, like the prime minister, have followed the World Bank’s advice aimed at converting India into a crony capitalist economy. America has not helped a bit despite high-ranking people from the US visiting the country every other day.

Most members of parliament and state legislatures live in a make-believe world and continue to delude themselves. It is well known that they get subsidised food and many other things. The central hall of parliament where the MPs congregate to rub shoulders with obliging journalists has a canteen run by the Railways where food is sold at ridiculously low prices.

Well-intentioned welfare schemes are starving for funds. The Congress-led government has an eye on the next elections. For unpredictable gains, the Congress has put the entire economic system at stake. The opposition parties may be shrill in their criticism, but they are right in stating that Singh’s prime ministership has been fraught with mismanagement and corruption. Although a few belated steps have been taken to stem the rot, the economic situation is going from bad to worse.

India is a non-sympathetic society. Over the years, it has deteriorated in values. There is not a semblance of idealism, much less movement, to uplift the downtrodden population. Poverty, unemployment and malnutrition — all signs of a decaying society — are increasingly visible. The bureaucracy has been reduced to a rubber-stamp when it should have been the steel frame that it was till the Seventies.

Once in a while a courageous bureaucrat like Durga Shakti Nagpal appears on the scene and evokes optimism. Her campaign against the sand mafia in Uttar Pradesh drew praise, but she was rewarded with a suspension. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav was allegedly influenced by politicians to get her out. Some of these politicians own the trucks that she impounded while they were carrying sand illegally from the Yamuna and Hindon river banks.

Had the two main political parties — the Congress and the BJP — joined forces against corruption in administration, the situation would have been different.

Perhaps a mid-term poll could give the country a fresh start. Singh should go back to the people. His remaining 10 months in office are looking like a lame duck rule.

Kuldip Nayar is a former Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and a former Rajya Sabha member.