| There are inherent dangers when a nation turns obsessive
about politics. The truly vital concerns get obscured. Politicians are supposed to provide
good governance. Instead, they prefer jousting with one another and matters of governance
get sidelined. As a result, it is the poor who are most affected. Already existing on the
brink, inaction pushes them over. This week we have compelling evidence of that. Our grim
story on Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh tells of an ignored epidemic of suicides caused
simply by starvation. For all the talk of
liberalisation and globalisation, it is often forgotten that India is a desperately poor
country. Statistics tell an inadequate story. In Bundelkhand, traditional cottage
industries have been destroyed, land is untillable, employment unavailable, and often
there's nothing to eat. With the government remaining unresponsive, entire families
decided to end their lives.
When Subhash Mishra, our principal correspondent in Lucknow,
first heard of the suicides from a friend in Jhansi he decided to tour the four most
affected districts. At the end of his journey, he was stunned by the extent of the
tragedy. In 1997 itself, poverty had led to 73 suicides in Jhansi, 82 in adjoining
Lalitpur. Entering a house where a starving man and his two children had killed
themselves, Mishra thought: "Chief ministers come to the Orcha temple in Bundelkhand
to ask for divine blessings. But in the same district, this makeshift hut with broken down
utensils and no food counts for nothing." In spite of a hefty bureaucracy consisting
of block development officers, subdivisional magistrates and district magistrates, an
entire region has been so neglected that suicide has become the only alternative. It is
the nation's shame.
(Aroon Purie) |
