A lot has been written and said about giving special status to Bihar. This issue has garnered so much attention that it might even be the game changer in who capitalizes over votes from Bihar in next general election. While personally I don't support the demand of special status for Bihar in its present form and maintain that it can proceed even without that. However, this article has less to do with this stand of mine and more to do with clarifying some questions Mr. Swaminathan Aiyar raised in his article "Bihar: Champion athlete does not need steroids" raised.
Mr. Aiyar insists that Bihar's demand of special status is like:
" a top athlete demanding steroids to keep sprinting.
No Olympics allows this, not even if an athlete is
poor or historically deprived."
What Mr. Aiyar overlooks is that economic growth is not a competition where all of Indian states are competing to win a gold medal. It is more like education for overall development and as far as I know if a student is weak in studies teachers are always requested to take special care of those students. Bihar is just demanding that special care.
Next Mr. Aiyar talks of population explosion:
"Bihar has long been among the worst states
in family planning and population growth.................
This has depressed its per capita income. But
can this be a reason to demand more cash, which
will come at the expense of states that have controlled
their populations and hence improved per capita income?
Should Tamil Nadu and Kerala subsidise Bihar's
bedroom profligacy?"
What a beautiful choice of word by an economist "Bihar's bedroom profligacy". I guess there is nothing like the demographic transition theory and the fact that while most states in India moved to second stage of demographic transition due to economic development Bihar is still stuck in first stage due to underdevelopment. Bihar is underdeveloped and that is why still facing high population growth rate. What is so amazing or un understandable in it. Students of economics fill pages while explaining India's population explosion, how is it different from that.
Next he asks:
" Bihar provides only 2.8 per cent of national income
but gets 8.6 per cent of central funds.That's misleading,
says Bihar: we account for 8.8 per cent of the population,
and it is the poorest 8 per cent, so we deserve more.
Once again the question arises, should successful family
planners have to pay more to the unsuccessful?"
What happened to the theory of vicious circle of poverty and talks of human development. I also didn't know that taxes were quid pro quo. I always thought taxes were a means of redistribution and rich are taxed so that state can finance its welfare spending. In order to break the vicious circle of poverty we need external help. Isn't that the reason we keep bugging the world bank for finance. To add to that I think we have stopped taking into account how the policy of freight equalization actually subsidized the same successful family planners. Let us look at how many mineral rich states with no developed port are developed state. Let me take a guess..... none. Why is the mineral rich region of India sinking in poverty when actually logic says they should be the place where factories should have been. There was a freight equalization policy but, no policy to negate the port advantage. When it came to minerals it was national wealth, when it was appropriated the principles of federation became irrelevant. Is it the case.
One more thing at the end of the day if Bihar remains poor then 8.8% of the country's population will be deprived of what is called economic development. With underdevelopment comes a lot of trouble and even if the state is the one facing it the most, nation too becomes a victim of it. So, unless we are planning to ignore that 8% of the population Bihar definitely will need additional funds to kick start its economy and yes that fund has to come from outside only as Bihar doesn't have enough of it.
All this doesn't mean I support Bihar's demand for special status but, I do believe Bihar needs special attention instead of small lollipops to develop. It hurt when such a good journalist says such hurtful thinks about people of a state, no matter how much sugarcoating is done by citing recent achievements in the same article. However I do believe that govt. should revisit the special status policy and may be look into doing something region wise as Finance minister talked in his speech this budget session. That way when funds are disbursed they are for underdeveloped regions and go there only. One more benefit will be that people in a particular region will not feel alienated and need not demand separate state to get govt. funds. Issues of Telangana and Vidarbha might be better addressed if we had special status for underdeveloped regions. So that funds meant for them went their only.
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