Vice-President M. Hamid Ansari on Saturday said that while economic growth was a necessary condition for societal welfare, it did not automatically lead to equality in accessing development and opportunities for growth.
He was inaugurating the 97th birthday celebrations of the former Supreme Court judge, V.R. Krishna Iyer, organised by the Sarada Krishna Satgamaya Foundation for Law and Justice.
The Vice-President said: “Inequality is a problem in the long run, especially when it kills aspiration for personal and societal betterment. In India, the matrix of inequality spans gender, the rural-urban divide, class, caste, tribe, linguistic and cultural groups.”
He pointed out that the world over, the common man was protesting against the exclusion of the majority from accessing the benefits of economic growth and prosperity “engendered by globalisation of financial markets, economies, and investment flows.” The real incomes of “the top percentiles across developed and emerging countries have grown disproportionately higher, exacerbating income inequalities. It is now clear that the system that has worked so well for the top percentile has delivered far less returns to others.”
Adverse effect
The Vice-President said it was even more surprising that income distribution had worsened despite the great strides in narrowing the gaps in health and educational achievements across population groups. It was now globally recognised that human development was adversely affected under conditions of inequality and that this could be quantified across indicators of health, education and income.
He said the Human Development Report 2011 of the UNDP had demonstrated that around a quarter of the human development at the global level was lost due to inequality. The South Asian region suffered the second largest human development losses due to inequality after Sub-Saharan Africa. As far as India was concerned, there was an overall human development loss of over 28 per cent due to inequality. The loss due to the inequality of human development achievements in education were the highest in India and accounted for over 40 per cent. While the report did not cover “overlapping inequalities,” we knew from our experience that certain marginalised groups such as women, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, linguistic and religious minorities and those below the poverty line faced “multiple deprivations and exclusions.”
Mr. Ansari said that indeed, securing to all citizens equality of status and opportunity was a solemn resolve in the preamble of the Constitution. The State had a constitutional and moral duty to expand opportunities to those being left behind. Thus, the State had focussed on affirmative action and provisions of a social safety net for the marginalised even as it tried to improve the capabilities of citizens to be more productive through skills and improved infrastructure.
Senior Kerala High Court Judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair presided. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Social Welfare and Panchayat Minister M.K. Muneer, the former Supreme Court judge, K.T. Thomas, and Mr. Krishna Iyer spoke.
