Viksit Bharat: Resetting agenda along foundational principles

By Pramode Mishra

Our political leadership has set a target of 2047 to usher in a Viksit Bharat. The contours of what a Viksit Bharat would look like have not been defined with any precision. Many believe that a trillion-dollar economy, bullet trains, shining airports, modernised railway stations, Bande Bharat trains, modern ports, a rising Sensex, FDI inflows and rising sales of motor vehicles are features of a Viksit Bharat. Many take pride in India emerging as the fourth-largest economy, displacing Japan, at our successful Chandrayan missions, and at our successful ICBM launches. While every Indian can be justly proud of such achievements, we need to reckon with a more sobering reality.

Most Indian cities have AQI in excess of 200 for most of the year. This is more than 4 times the normal air quality and exposes a majority of our citizens, particularly children, to serious health hazards. The problem is getting compounded with the passage of time, and more and more areas are being affected by deteriorating air quality for longer periods.

We also have to contend with serious issues regarding the quality of Drinking water. The Indore incident, where more than 25 people lost their lives due to contaminated water, drives home the point. A NITI AYOG report of 2018 highlighted that India ranks 120 out of 122 countries in the water quality index and that 70 per cent of the water was contaminated. 

It would thus be seen that two very basic necessities to sustain life,   air and water, are not available in their pristine purity to our citizens. 

While we can be justly proud about being the fourth largest economy in the world, there is little to cheer when we look at the per capita income of an Indian. We rank 144 in the world in terms of our per capita income. Here again, the story is quite grim. The distribution of income amongst is terribly skewed. With the richest, which is only 1 per cent of the population, cornering almost 45% of the wealth, and the bottom  50 % percent of the population possess a mere 6% of the wealth. India's wealth gap is among the highest in the world, with the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few increasing with the passage of time.

The Global Hunger Index has been developed as a tool to track hunger and malnourishment worldwide. It ranks countries by tracking data on undernutrition, child stunting, child wasting and child mortality. India ranked 102 out of 123 countries.

There are serious concerns regarding Governance. An essential feature of good governance is the speedy resolution of disputes. Our record in this regard is rather dismal There are over 50 million cases pending in various courts across India. The problem is compounded by the large number of vacancies in the Courts. Currently, one-third of the posts are lying vacant in various  High Courts.

Corruption is yet another issue that bothers the Citizens. The Corruption Perception Index, prepared by the transparency international, ranks India at 96 out of 180 countries.

I have listed some serious challenges that we have to wrestle with on our march to a Viksit Bharat. These are not insurmountable. We can overcome such challenges only if we set our agenda correctly. The real challenge before us is to separate the ephemeral from the enduring. We should always remember the foundational principles on which this republic was built and the promise made to the people when we became a Republic. The promise was to secure to all its Citizens  Justice, social, economic and political, liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship, Equality of Status and opportunity. 

We seem to have strayed from these goals. It is time to reset the agenda and ensure that these foundational principles are the contours of a Viksit Bharat.