The Hindu Business Line : Development aid and political power

THE first leap year of this millennium has started off on a contrasting note. A sea of humanity gathered in Mumbai for the World Social Forum in mid-January to express anger and anguish over what they consider the raging oppression and continued aggression by the elite.

Though of different nationalities and speaking a variety of languages, over 100,000 people from across the world were of one voice in their expression of unrest and disquiet. With the majority being Indians, it was apparent that the `feel-good' factor was mere hype.

A bubbling economy and a `feel-good' state were seen as the gains, albeit for a few, of neo-liberal policies promoting globalisation. Women's groups, adivasi organisations and Dalit movements cautioned the governing elite not to take them for granted.

Civil society questioned the elitist decision-making process that impacts the lives of millions, be it the decision to go to war or to link the rivers across the country. The belief that, once voted to power, governments have free reign came under fire.

Expectedly, the Maharashtra Chief Minister was quick to join the cynics in dismissing the event terming it impractical and wondered if such social congregations have any impact.

At a time when social space is being usurped by a growing politician-corporate nexus, politicians see the upsurge of civil society as a potent threat to the forces that seek to influence and control.

Just about the time civil society went in a chorus to debunk the growing power nexus, noted columnist George Monbiot exposed what is seen as another unholy alliance — between development aid and political power. Monbiot questioned the British Government's motive behind continuing development aid (£342 million) to Andhra Pradesh.

He alleged that the State was bargaining away the interests of the poor by privatising public utilities and creating business opportunities for British companies.

Not only has Ms Charlotte Seymour-Smith, Head of the Department for International Development (DfID), contested Monbiot's allegations, the Andhra Pradesh Government has also officially refuted the charges. However, several key questions remain unanswered.

Why should a buoyant economy that is upbeat about its growing foreign reserves and has terminated bilateral aid agreements with many European countries continue to encourage the British to invest in Andhra Pradesh?

Why is Britain investing 15 times more than it sent to Ethiopia last year for famine relief? Is not Andhra Pradesh going the Chile way, where the impact of unrestricted aid during the 1970s resulted in the replacement of small farmers with the agro-industry and in the widespread sell-off of its public utilities?

Are the British not using the State as a laboratory to finish their unfinished agenda of total privatisation in Chile? There are several such intriguing questions.

Even if the DfID is unwilling to accept the implications of its aid, how can it distance itself from Andhra Pradesh's Vision 2020 that lays down its development policy aimed at reducing the absolute number of subsistence farmers by promoting agro-industries?

How can the DfID be oblivious to the fact that the growth of women's self-help groups in the State has become easy target for the multinational consumer giants to make inroads into the rural areas?

Clearly, there is more to it than meets the eye. However, it is not as if the hidden implications of development aid are not known; the fact that these comments come from a British author only add weight to the general feeling at home on development aid.

The fact that the indicators of development are tilted in favour of the corporations is worrisome. Easy credit at the doorstep, better communications infrastructure and an emerging private sector are considered the necessary components of a buoyant economy.

The shrinking job market, an expensive service industry and a troubled public sector do seem to not concern the government as much.

Far from reversing the trend, governments are using development aid to further the cause of privatisation.

Monbiot has opened the Pandora's Box of contradictions that the the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, may find hard to deal with.

Further, Monbiot asserts that people should be constantly challenging, threatening and exposing the system.

Without that, says he, democracy becomes corrupt. This is the hidden face of development that the rallies, demonstrations and discourses by women's groups and Dalit movements tried to expose at the World Social Forum.

India seems to be shining for the few at the cost of the majority. With peoples' voices and concerns having been reduced as `non-issues', each step forward is a step closer to globalisation based on a singular neo-liberal approach.

In a `feel-good' era, when the state is supposedly flush with resources as never before, tariffs for the most basic of human needs — `water' — are going through an upward revision in Delhi. Clearly, the plight of the poor who may not be able to afford costly potable water matters little.

While selective development aid is being unscrupulously used to chase the ambitious Millennium Development Goals, Chief Ministers of most States are demanding relaxation in forest and environment laws such that infrastructure investment, a la corporatisation, can be conveniently pursued. And the people are told to `feel good' as the buoyant economy takes a leap?

(The author is a development writer associated with the Delhi-based Ecological Foundation. He can be reached at sudhirendar@vsnl.net)