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Development and freedom

Ranabir Ray Choudhury

PROFESSOR Amartya Sen's latest book (1999) is entitled Development as Freedom in which he discusses what the term `development' really denotes. In his words - to be found right at the beginning of the introduction - ``development can be seen... as a pr ocess of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy''. A couple of sentences later, he writes that the ``freedoms depend also on other determinants (apart from GNP growth, etc), such as social and economic arrangements... as well as politi cal and civil rights... He also considers the ``mutually reinforcing connections between freedoms of different kinds'' and suggests that ``it is because of these interconnections... that free and sustainable agency emerges as a major en gine of development''.

As should already be clear, Prof. Sen's book is rather complex and should be a difficult nut to crack for those who do not care for philosophical ruminations which do not in any way afford a better appreciation of certain very simple, yet pressing, issue s involved in improving one's standard of living.

Very briefly, what does an average citizen care for? He would like to have adequate purchasing power which will enable him to look after his family comfortably (to begin with) which would include, among other more mundane things, having a decent living a rrangement and being able to arrange for one's children a fairly good education.

In a way, the citizen is at the receiving end because, though living in a society, he is not directly associated with policy-making as such, which is actually a matter of selecting the best available option regarding the allocation of scare resources in a poor economy.

It is, in fact, those wielding political power who have this capability, and there is no doubt whatever that, in the final analysis, it is the success or failure of their policies which will determine whether the average citizen finds his standard of liv ing improving or deteriorating.

What precisely is the nature of the relationship between those in society who wield political power and those who do not? This relationship varies from society to society, from a situation where the gun decides to one where the ballot calls the shots. I f there is a sensible and benign dictator - who has usurped power with the help of the gun - it is just possible that his policies may turn out to be more beneficial to the general standard of living than those of a regime elected by the people themselves.

On the other hand, it is possible (perhaps even likely) that the dictator will enrich only himself at the cost of society in general, who then has to be removed with the help of the gun itself. In the elected scheme of things, the average citizen has the advantage that if he is unhappy with the performance of an ineffective democratically-elected Government, he can vote it out at the next hustings.

But which is more important, bread or the freedom to speak one's mind fearlessly, which includes the right of universal suffrage? Or are both equally important, which is what should be the case as far as India is concerned?

In other words, does `development' encompass one's fundamental rights as we know of them today or can these rights - or some of them - be sacrificed provided such a sacrifice were to lead to a faster pace of growth in our material standard of livin g? In terms of Prof. Sen's formulation, can there be `development' with an increase in certain ``unfreedoms'' such as `tyranny' or the ``intolerance or overactivity of repressive states''?

Have we reached a stage where the proposition `development and freedom' should be discussed as against Prof. Sen's `development as freedom'?

Indeed, there is one school of thought which feels that, in India at least, something has gone terribly wrong with the political system, so much so that political freedom is seen today to be standing in the way of achieving a rapid rate of economic growt h.

This is a dangerous virus of a thought because, if allowed to grow unchecked, it could seriously affect the further development of the system of political democracy prevalent in the country. This would be an unmitigated disaster because the existing syst em is not only India's life-blood but also absolutely irreplaceable if the many-faceted diversity of the Union is to be properly reflected in its political and administrative unity.

On the other hand, there must be some valid reason why the virus has been able to raise its ugly head - in fact to such an extent that some have even begun contemplating that faster economic growth may not be too high a price to pay for a c urtailment of some of our fundamental rights.

If politicians are solely responsible for the poor implementation of sensible reform and other policies, will it be proper to curtail some of their freedoms (for instance, the assumed right to misbehave in Parliament) after they are elected to the Lower House? Indeed, should the eligibility requirements for aspiring MPs be made more strict (educational qualifications, etc) in an effort to ensure that only the right sort of people make it to the House in the first place, the basic assumption being that e ach and every MP should have the right leadership qualities?

The problem is that, though this appears to be a sensible and practicable way of preserving the `freedoms' of the average citizen, it is almost certain that MPs in Parliament will not vote to make the eligibility criteria for membership of the House much tougher than now. This, in fact, is a classic case of vested interests working to protect their turf even when it is abundantly clear that by doing so the `national interest' is compromised.

The seriousness of the situation is underscored by the thought that unless such a curtailment of the `freedoms' enjoyed by the politician is put in place, there is little hope of `development' in the conventional sense of the term ever taking off in Indi a. The scheme of an increase in the quantum of `freedoms' which Prof. Sen envisages will remain on paper if the quality of the political direction necessary to implement the scheme is not greatly improved. The complicating factor is that only the politic ians themselves can place such curbs on themselves, which is perhaps asking for the impossible.