Inclusive Growth

The tremendous unrest in the country among adivasis over their displacement due to a plethora of development projects as well as the rampant farmer's suicides has finally moved the politicians and administrators if not the corporates into shedding crocodile tears. Consequently a new buzz word has now made its appearance in development discourse - "inclusive growth". Growth is necessary for development it is argued but to distribute its benefits more equitably it must include the hitherto deprived also instead of fleecing them as has been the trend up to now. So here we have yet another shibboleth in the never ending litany of false rhetoric that late capitalism is employing to try and wish away its fundamental contradiction between profit making and equitable distribution. This contradiction has now manifested itself in the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market and the consequent bursting of the bubble of the home loan and realty sectors in the United States of America.
Regardless of the clear trends in concentration of wealth in India in the post liberalisation era both the Prime Minister and the President on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of our independence held forth on the virtues of inclusive growth which like all capitalist shibboleths is a contradiction in terms. Growth can occur only through concentration of resources in the hands of a few at the expense of the many. The faster the growth, the faster is the concentration of resources. So if the adivasis and the natural resources in harmony with which they live are indeed to be included and preserved in their pristine form then we must jettison growth.
While there was a lot of hype on television about the sixtieth anniversary in stark contrast in remote adivasi villages there was no realisation of this at all. People were going about their daily chores of weeding of their fields as usual. There is in fact no feeling of nationhood among most adivasis as this concept has arisen from capitalist concentration.
The adivasis are instead at this time of the year celebrating Diwasa. This is a festival to propitiate the new crop that is in the fields and take permission from the Gods inside it to consume it. A festival that clearly recognises the paramountcy of nature over the lives of human beings and pays obeisance to it for its bounty. A sober quiet celebration in the villages as opposed to the obscene display of military power that marks the celebration of independence day in Delhi.