Juxtapose this against our poverty statistics: One quarter of the world’s poor live in India. About 300 million people receive an income of just 50 pence a day according to BBC statistics. Our slums accommodate nearly 150 million people. In Mumbai alone it is estimated that 50 per cent. of its population live in shanty towns, open spaces or on pavements.

The austerity debate will not prevent the rich from splurging their wealth in conspicuous consumption or motivate them to contribute for improving the lot of the poor; if it alerts the public to the ways of the prodigal sons and daughters in politics, in the bureaucracy, in the entertainment business and among the elite middle class , that would be a gain.

Ministers are being advised to travel by economy class; but what of their powers to bleed the nation white without anyone batting an eyelid? The Right to Information Act brought into public knowledge recently that Rs 100 crore were spent in repairing and furnishing ministers’ residences since the present UPA government took charge in May.

Mayawati goes on building statutes to boost the morale of the Dalits spending thousands of crores; the Marathas are planning a Rs 300 crore statue of Shivaji to install Maratha pride in stone. While money is thus spent on the dead, living symbols of great enterprise like the Ambanis build mansions equipped with helipads and the like to impress the world of their achievements.

We are fed with revelations off and on about the perks enjoyed by our representatives in the legislatures costing a huge sum. Instead of adopting a life style in keeping with the common man, they seem to make hay while the sun shines. A latest development is the presence of rich businessmen and industrialists in apposition to manipulate development policies in a way that favours certain sections.

Juxtapose this against our poverty statistics: One quarter of the world’s poor live in India. About 300 million people receive an income of just 50 pence a day according to BBC statistics. Our slums accommodate nearly 150 million people. In Mumbai alone it is estimated that 50 per cent. of its population live in shanty towns, open spaces or on pavements.

It is paradoxical that in such a nation, the roads are choked with luxury cars and vehicles and import of petroleum products cause severe drain on our resources. Then there is the tragedy of massed nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers and other huge stockpiles of arms in the name of defense needs. This also amounts to depriving the poor of precious funds needed for meeting their basic needs.

It is relevant here to recall the words of the Father of the Nation concerned with the salvation of the poor: ‘I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?

Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.’

The middle class:
Political power in our country is wielded by the middle class and there is a perceived indifference to matters relating to uplift of the poor and downtrodden. It is the airports, flyovers, luxury items that figure prominently as sectors attracting more investments. Watch the overcrowded trains proceeding to Patna with Bihari labourers from the New Delhi station and you will understand what the neglect of the ‘aam admi’ means.

Or let another ‘aam admi’ proceed to register a complaint with any police station.

The attitude of the constables to the complainant will be a study how even an ‘aam admi’ does not have compassion for another ‘aam admi’ The feudal attitude of caring for the rich and highly placed and ignoring the ordinary and the commonplace has to change.

But we find our highly paid managers, professionals like doctors , teachers and above all political bosses bargaining for more and more while the voices of the hungry and the wretches get drowned in the cacophony of competing claims.

Whose India is poised to become a super power by 2020? It is the middle class getting richer and richer while increasing inequalities cause the lot of the poor to worsen. It is time to take note and to ensure that the fruits of development are distributed in a manner to ensure distributive justice.

Corrupting ways:
The corrupting ways of those in power, left unchecked, poses a far greater threat to the well being of the common man than the terrorist threat from across borders.

Austerity should be part of the outlook, arising from a compassionate awareness that millions in our land are without basic necessities, living the life of animals , while quite a large number holding to positions of power and living luxuriously are indifferent to the lot of the wretched and miserable around them.

This fourth largest economy in the world (by GDP at purchasing power parity) ranks: 126th in a list of 177nations in the World Human Development Index and the rate of child malnutrition double that of sub-Saharan Africa. With such factual and visible evidence reinforcing existing bias, the defining element of our economy would remain identified with our poor millions, much as we would like it to be otherwise.

The painful paradox of such poverty in the midst of consistently high rates of economic growth over the last few years and the sustained development effort pursued through economic planning since 1950 is the measure of the pathos in the Indian story.

A study earlier this year showed India, where more than 300 million people live in dire poverty, had 50 billionaires who together controlled wealth that was equivalent to 20 per cent of Gross Domestic Product and, reportedly, 80 per cent of stock market capitalisation. “This concentration of wealth and influence could be a hidden time bomb under India‘s social fabric,” warned the authors of the US-based Emerging Markets Forum.

Civil society organizations must be vigilant to expose the extravagance of the rulers and the middle class and to prevent all ostentatious expenses using all democratic means. The Right to Information Act is a help wherein the bureaucracy may try to hide its corrupt and wasteful ways.