Book Review: Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze,An Uncertain Glory

Under the Cover

The volume is written in a simple yet academic language. Dr Sen and Dr Drèze have made statistics their rhetoric. The first two chapters set the context and the tone by giving a brief history of economic stagnation during colonization and the philosophy of inclusive growth. The point is well taken that history did not favour inclusive growth—neither under the feudal lords nor under the British Raj. Further, the authors bring a contemporary debate of comparing China’s growth with India to a fruitful burial by stating that it is incomparable and India has much to cheer about due to her democratic ideals and free media. However, the million dollar question stays put—How to improve our public service delivery?

The third chapter of the book deals with India versus the rest of South Asia as well as India versus other Brazil–Russia–India–China (BRIC) nations. The argument is that over the years, from 1990 to 2011, India has dropped down every other list of performance indicators except the GDP growth rate. She now only precedes war-torn Pakistan. Bangladesh has been incited as an example of inclusive growth, and the role of women using microfinance as a tool has been rightly diagnosed as the cause for their progress. For a student of policy science, this provides a glaring example of bottom-up growth assisted by better policy design and the role of the females as growth drivers. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been mentioned to improve the womenfolk’s real income growth in India from 2006 onward.

This chapter, interestingly, also mentions Brazil, which has achieved better social indicators despite low or no economic growth. This is almost due to their political will and thereby better designed and targeted programmes (initially Bolsa Escola and later Bolsa Familia). This is a critical takeaway as Brazil is quite alike India—socially and geographically. Improvements in their public service deliveries can be good lessons for us.

The next chapter elaborates on accountability or lack of it and the pervasive corruption in the public sector. This is touted to be the raison d’être of India’s lack of inclusive growth. The pertinent questions rose by Sen and Drèze are that, first, in what areas the public sector can serve better than the private sector and, second, how can the public sector be made more accountable? This brings into light the debate of the public–private partnership and its omnipresent yet falsified presumptions.

The authors have mentioned the blackout of half the nation in July 2012 more than once in the book as the prime evidence of zero accountability and corruption in the power sector. Albeit being a recent writing, they did not touch upon the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Act, 2013, which might change the nature of accountability and might act as a policy innovation catalyst. Another worthy mention could have been the Right to Service Acts in various states. Although they have raised questions on the efficacy of Lokpal legislation, they have lauded Right to Information (RTI) in its present avatar.

Central Theme

The subsequent chapters are detailed analyses in the areas of health, education and so on. Enrolment in schools and quality of education have not picked up even after the implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The state of government schools remains abysmal. Their prescription for education inter alia is to utilize teachers’ unions as collaborators rather than obstacles. For healthcare, they analyze critically the private health insurance trap under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) and point out the shortcomings quite competently. Similarly, the malnutrition of infant India is proficiently brought out. The state of Tamil Nadu has been cited as a success story in providing healthcare to its citizens.

Indian social indicators are compared with her South Asian neighbours, and unfortunately, the Indian health and education sectors are performing better than none but Pakistan in South Asia, which is a failed state. For instance, the figures for percentage of GDP invested in health, 1.2 per cent is even lower than sub-Saharan economies. Immunization of children up to 1 year of age is amongst the worst indicator for India in the world. Such social indicators have degraded over the years, especially in the post-liberalization period. Is it a case of being swayed by economic success at the cost of the population at the bottom of the pyramid? This is the point being driven home emphatically.

But, these chapters miss a good opportunity to emphasize the need for policy innovation, although they do highlight past successes. The argument could have been made for innovations in public service delivery or livelihood, but the timeliness as well as quality of interventions could have been questioned. This would have lent these chapters a holistic dimension. Subsequent chapters are a long-drawn argument on poverty, inequality and demo-cracy and public reasoning. These are essays on the core issues of our dysfunctional democracy reflective of the best minds of our times both in terms of language and ideas but not in novelty and brevity.

Critique

The volume is an insightful diagnosis of India’s widening inequality that makes her lag behind almost about every nation except a few extremely poor ones or war-ravaged ones. To an informed reader, it paints only a lengthy picture of the state of affairs filling the interstices with credible data and statistics. The book, unfortunately, lacks any hint of a solution on the horizon other than the need for impatience and call for action on the part of the deprived. It does not give a glimpse into the future. One wonders whether that is because of the design or not. The rise of social movement and its coming to power in Delhi is a sign itself of the growing impatience and rising decibels of unheard voices so far.

Nonetheless, it is a comprehensive compilation of numbers and an anthology of logic and reason which everyone who is anyone should read and imbibe so as to instigate some action against the growing inequalities and insensitivities in our society. It is probably the subtle war cry to stand up and fight against the rampant inefficiencies of our public systems which act like tied chains holding the massive elephant from galloping towards an equitable growth.