Editorial

Right to Remain Inactive

Simply saying, inflation looks menacing, which may—or may not—mean anything to millions who are struggling hard day in and day out to cope with the market mayhem, is not the answer. Then political parties, left and right alike, have no answer because they would not like to take trouble to answer. Even ten percent of India’s billion plus population could make a major nation in the international community. Maybe, the ruling elites of India are more concerned about this ‘small nation’ within a ‘big nation’. All their growth strategy is aimed at creating a captive market that will serve the people who are in high income and middle income brackets. And the rest—the subaltern, lower middle class people may be condemned to drudgery and precarious life-style. They can be easily tamed by sweet words, promises. And that is the key for the political elites to remain inactive even in a desperate situation.

The surge in inflation, rather retail inflation, that affects the people in the streets, in recent weeks is not their headache. Retail inflation moved up for the fifth consecutive month to 10.91 percent in February against 10.79 percent in January, mainly on account of higher prices of vegetables, edible oil, cereals and other food items. Consumer Price Inflation no longer attracts the attention of left parties as they have forgotten their own past when they used to agitate against price-rise. As the economy is more and more market driven they think it is useless to shout slogans to register their voice of protest. Today they are voiceless for all practical purposes. In reality people are asked to accept the prevailing market reality and learn the art of living with the devil—price rise. They could at best pray to market god for better tomorrows that will never arrive.

Regional disparity coupled with discriminatory treatment by the centre is being reflected in inflationary pressure as well though market these days across the country is more or less uniform. Uneven development means fluctuation in wage levels from region to region. There is no national wage policy. Nor will it work if there is any because of uneven development in different regions. And migration of people searching for better opportunities and wages, is no longer a national phenomenon. They are moving from low-wage areas to high wage areas because inflation in low-wage areas is too oppressive to bear with. Consumer Price Index for food and beverages stood at 13.73 percent against the general index of 10.91 percent in the recent weeks, literally making a panic for all categories of wage earners.

If anything the systematic migration of able bodied persons has created a peculiar situation in rural India, particularly in the east, as farmers, more precisely small and middle farmers, are facing serious shortage of labour. As they cannot afford even government sponsored minimum wages, not to speak of market dictated variable wages, it is a matter of time that agro-companies, including giant foreign companies, will come in a big way to gobble up farm land through contact farming with ‘reasonable return’ at the initial stage. But migration has already created a kind of money order economy across the length and breadth of the country. As a result in many regions too much money is chasing too little products, fuelling further inflation. What is true for national scenario, is equally true globally.

More than 214 million migrants are today working in different countries. Migrant money around the world jumped to record levels in 2012 totalling $530 million in aggregate. More and more people are crossing borders to escape low wage, unemployment or part-time employment. ‘If the migrants lived in one country, it would be the fifth most populous, trailing only China, India, USA and Indonesia’. It only illustrates the extent of casualisation of global workforce and boosting of outsourcing and contractual practice. Migrants are not covered by the laws of the land where they work. They are always kept in a state of losing work permit and deportation.

For the persons in power in Delhi it is no fun that migrants in the UK despatched nearly $4 billion in remittances to India in 2011, compared with $450 million British ‘aid’ to India that year. For the bankrupt Indian Government it is a steady source of foreign exchange. Remittances fell in 2008-09 but there was no appreciable fall in later period as the remittance phenomenon seems largely recession-proof. The average service charges claimed by banks and on-line money transfer firms total 9 percent or $18 for every $200 sent.

For migrants, their children are virtual orphans. Only a few dozen governments have so far ratified an international convention on migrant workers’ rights. The US, EU and Gulf countries—the major destinations of migrants—have not ratified it, implying harsh legal and working conditions for migrants in those countries. Even in China, their very own inland migrants with rural background face discrimination in sprawling urban jungles—the symbol of Chinese miracle. In India how migrants from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh encounter harassment, intimidation, threat of eviction all the time, is almost a periodic staple for the media.

In the absence of any comprehensive labour law for migrants, they are quite often abused and became easy victims of extra-legal coercion. Migrants are mostly in informal sector and mere lip service to better treatment will not hinder abuses.

There is a close relationship between inflation and migration. It’s not known whether inflation has anything to do with the political bankruptcy of the left! Right now they are busy with pending bills including the controversial food security bill and land reforms amendment bill and the much talked about rape bill. For them there is more at stake than dangerous inflation and national economic interests.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 37, Mar 24-30, 2013

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