India’s wrong priorities: As children go hungry PM Modi buys fighter jets in France

by JEAN-PIERRE LEHMANN

Water distribution and access to sanitation in Indian villages are terrible; girls (and it is always girls!) need to walk huge distances to fetch water from wells, thereby missing out on school. Over a-third of females in India are illiterate; there are more illiterate females in India than in the rest of the world combined.

On the occasion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent state visit to France (GDP per capita, $42,000) it was announced that India (GDP per capita, $6,000) would purchase 36 “ready to fly” Rafale fighter jets from French aerospace behemoth Dassault Aviation. Great news for France! This brings in revenue and creates lots of jobs. This is especially so as there have been difficulties getting customers; so far, until PM Modi’s proposed purchase, the only sale had been to Egyptian military dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

The implications for India, however, are depressing: one more vivid illustration of misguided policies at the expense of the poor. 960 million Indians live on less than $2 a day. Reading the data is one thing; seeing the consequences, as I did recently driving through the slums on the outskirts of Jaipur, is heart-wrenching. Their plight could not be worse. Rafale jet fighters are about the last thing they need!

India will soon surpass China to become the world’s most populous nation, reaching 1.6 billion by the middle of the century. The demographic profiles of the two countries are totally different. Whereas China faces the challenges of a rapidly aging society, hence a decrease in the labor pool; with its huge demographic dividend (50% of the population is less than 25, 65% less than 35) India needs to create millions and millions of jobs. If hundreds of millions of Indians remain mired in poverty and the young fail to be educated, employed and motivated, the consequences could be truly dramatic for Indians, but also for the world in the 21st century. Not only will India have failed; humanity will have failed.

India matters to the world. With a civilization stretching back thousands of years, India has a great deal to contribute to global civilization. The richer India is not only materially, but also culturally and spiritually, the richer the planet is; this had been the case for centuries until the impoverishment of the country caused by 200 years of British colonialism. (But that should be a challenge, not an excuse!)

In short, India has a lot to offer the world; but to be in a position to do so it has to improve radically the lives of hundreds of millions of its own citizens. A country that has 44% of its children under five suffering from malnutrition – providing the world with one-third of the total population of hungry children – can perhaps become a world power (if it keeps on buying state-of-the-art French fighter jets), but certainly not a world role model: India’s purchase of fighter jets may be a means to achieve greater hard power, but in the process, as domestic social conditions of misery and injustice continue to fester, it is losing soft power.

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via South Asia Citizens Web

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