Mind the knowledge gap

True development calls for a redistribution of knowledge between India and Bharat.

If there needs to be redistribution, it is not only of wealth and opportunity, but of knowledge and power, and it is not only within Bharat, but across India and Bharat. (Illustration: CR Sasikumar)

As we approach another general election and look back, perhaps the biggest contribution, and disappointment, was the introduction of vikasvaad into our lexicon, and its incomplete articulation and poor implementation. It is also the frittering away of a historic opportunity to correct the structural problems which pin us down. The question remains: What is vikasvaad and why do we need it?

India is a land of great diversity and inequality. Add to this a massive vikas deficit, that is, the poor provisioning of sadak, bijli, paani and health, a large informal sector, struggling enterprises and a poverty of good jobs. All this was true at the birth of independent India and continues today. What is worse, we have lost our environment and a way of life more aligned with nature and the seasons. Yet, let alone modernity, even a modicum of certainty and dignity eludes us.

At Independence, in spite of the massive mobilisation of people, there were but a few imaginations of how India should be governed. The primary concerns then were, how will we stay together and what will pull our people out of abject poverty. The three broad options were: First, Ram Rajya. That is the politico-cultural stewardship of a popular and benevolent despot; second, a variation of Mahatma Gandhi’s decentralised Hind Swaraj; and, finally, Nehruvian modernity, a paradigm of elite stewardship, which won the day and the approval of Gandhi.