The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Alienating even supporters

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Friday, Apr 15, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

Alienating even supporters

Kalpana Sharma

Some recent decisions of the Maharashtra Government have gone against its natural constituency.

Vilasrao Deshmukh ... puzzling policies. Photo: R.V. Moorthy

SOME OF the recent actions of the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party Government in Maharashtra have left even its most loyal supporters puzzled. Few can work out what lies behind a slew of policy decisions taken by the Government, or by the statements of its leading figures.

Take the Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh. He was asked to pull back on his campaign to demolish illegal slum colonies by the Congress high command when it realised that this was giving the party a bad name. But by then, an estimated 84,000 huts had been demolished, rendering lakhs of people homeless. Despite agitations and dharnas, no relief plan has yet been formulated for these people. Or for the remaining 40 to 50 lakh slum dwellers living in impermanent housing.

But Mr. Deshmukh is not apologetic about his belief that Mumbai should not accept "outsiders," a line previously taken only by the Shiv Sena. In fact, if people thought that the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's reprimand would temper the Chief Minister's public statements, they were wrong.

No room for "guests"

In a debate in the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Deshmukh made it clear that there was no room in Mumbai for "guests," referring to people from outside Maharashtra. At a function in Navi Mumbai last week, he went a step further and complained that many top bureaucrats in Maharashtra were from other States and that it was time Maharashtrian youth entered the civil services.

The Government's attitude towards dance bars is equally perplexing. Taking the high moral ground, the Deputy Chief Minister and Home Minister, R.R. Patil, initiated a ban on them outside Mumbai. Now the Cabinet has concluded that the bars in Mumbai must also be shut down. One of the reasons given is that a majority of girls in these bars are from Bangladesh.

How the Government has come to this conclusion is not explained. Did it conduct a census of the girls who dance in these bars? Is the problem with the Bangladeshi dancers specifically or with dance barsin general? Why has the Government suddenly woken up to this "corrupting" influence? Where will it strike next? At all bars? At discotheques? In this case too, the Government's justification for its actions — that the women are from Bangladesh — is reminiscent of the Shiv Sena.

Norms for farmers

The most recent, and equally puzzling, policy is one initiated by the Irrigation Minister, Ajit Pawar, that denies farmers with more than two children access to irrigation water. This, Mr. Pawar believes, will contribute to the slowing down of the growth in population. Clause 14 (5) of the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Bill 2003, passed by the Legislative Council on April 7 but yet to be placed in the Assembly, states: "A person having more than two children shall not be eligible to get entitlement of water for the purpose of agriculture."

This provision goes against every bit of learning that has taken place over the last few decades on the population issue. The International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 emphasised the link between development and population. It established convincingly that the best contraceptive for a growing population was development. Data from around the world also confirmed that giving women the power to make choices was a far more effective route to restricting family size than any kind of coercion.

India was a signatory to the Programme of Action formulated in Cairo and much of it has been reflected in policies emanating from New Delhi. Yet, at the State level this has not always worked.

Family planning

Many States continue to try out a variety of direct or indirect coercive methods to produce results. They refuse to look at the history of the family planning programme in India, which has clearly demonstrated that coercion has resulted in a setback to promoting family planning and welfare rather than encouraging it.

The myth of the "population explosion" and seeing too many people as the root of all problems, including poverty, allows policymakers such as those in Maharashtra to ignore the real issues of distributive justice, of the wasteful and profligate use of resources by a few, and of poor planning.

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