Vacation Travel India

The rich and poor

The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was trounced in the 2004 general election, as the majority of people could see no truth in its “India Shining” slogan; giving some hope for a change in direction from the new Congress-led, and Left Front-supported, United Progressive Alliance. “India Shining”, however, was firmly aimed at India’s middle and upper classes, for whom a huge increase in consumer debt has fuelled an equally large orgy of spending, on anything from mobile phones to the latest foreign car.

However, such riches, apparent on any trip to one of the large “metros” (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai), are available to only the 10 percent of the population that comprises the Indian urban middle class. What, then, about the other 90 percent? Life for them, it seems, might not be so rosy. Since 1991, the country has undergone huge economic change, and the adoption of neo-liberal policies, and while this has given a huge boost to the 300 million who count themselves as the Indian middle class, conditions for the vast majority have not improved, and in many cases have become much worse.

Economic reform got off to a shaky start. It was supposed to bring much-needed jobs to India but unemployment has risen, from 9.2 percent in 2000 to 10.1 percent in 2004. The loss of jobs has also affected the non-agricultural sector, which includes the area celebrated by many as India’s savior: the IT and service industries. The service industry accounts for around 51 percent of jobs, much of it extremely badly paid. The country has attracted much business process outsourcing (BPO) by Western companies, which has benefited the middle class, though the work itself is not highly skilled, and most of its operators are vastly overqualified. India exports $25 billion a year of these services, though there have already been reports of companies relocating from India to places such as Ghana where the workforce is even cheaper. In any case, it has been argued that such work merely diverts the best-educated workers into servicing US and European bank and utility accounts rather than into more productive employment - in essence, an internal brain drain.

At the same time, the employment figures mask the true scale of the problem. Only 61 percent of the adult population (between 15 and 65 years old) are seeking employment, and of those who do actually find work, most will be underemployed. Just to satisfy the middle class alone it is estimated that at least 10 million well paid jobs a year need to be created.

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Health and education

Meanwhile failures (some created by the misinformed planting of genetically modified crops) and hardship in agricultural regions, which still support around 72 percent of the population whilst accounting for only 21 percent of GDP, have led to an unprecedented number of suicides by farmers. On other indicators of public well-being, India is also faring badly. Public spending is declining, particularly on health, as tax cuts are given to the better off. According to the UN, less than 50 percent of the population have access to essential drugs and there is a chronic shortage of health facilities (in rural India there are only 44 hospital beds per 100,000 people; in the UK there are around 470).

The list of statistics goes on to point out that in a country with one of the lowest levels of health spending as a percentage of GDP, only 30 percent of people have access to adequate sanitation and some 66 percent of children under the age of three suffer from malnutrition. It is not only on health that India faces difficulties; education also has a lot of catching up to do. One in three of the world’s illiterate people lives in India. This is a staggering number and a trend that looks set to continue. Only around 50 percent of girls are enrolled in primary education, and for this there is a 10 percent drop-out rate.

Child labor also continues. Based on government figures (which nearly all NGOs and independent commentators consider to be wildly overoptimistic) UNICEF has reported that at least 35 million children (14 percent of those of school age) work as, overwhelmingly rural, laborers (some breaking stones in quarries to provide for European patios). A huge amount of these are “bonded”, effectively a form of slavery.

In a further blow to the poor, the government has embarked on creating a series of “special economic zones” (SEZs), effectively tax havens for rich multinational companies as an incentive for their inward investment. This has entailed a huge land grab, with millions being displaced with little or no compensation. The promise is that these SEZs will bring employment and prosperity. However, the Indian Ministry of Finance said that there would be a net loss on these projects of around US$36.5 billion by 2010.

Evidence for the great divide between haves and have-nots can be seen all over the country. In

Gurgaon, middle-class enclave extraordinaire, house prices start at Rps 10 billion, about 270 times the average annual income. Close by in Delhi, 32 percent of the population live in jhuggis (slums), although the city has a Bentley showroom. Meanwhile, poverty-stricken survivors of the 2004 tsunami in Tamil Nadu have resorted to selling their kidneys in order to survive.

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For your honeymoon India is a great choice, so let’s see what you can expect if you travel to India.

An observation often made of India is that it is “timeless” or “unchanging”; this, of course, is sheer drivel. No society or culture is unchanging, and India is no exception. Equally, a mistake is made by commentators who have become excited about the rise of the “new Indian middle class”, assuming this appetite for change and development is a recent phenomenon manifested in India’s embrace of neo-liberalism (confusing an economic doctrine with modernity). In reality, as ever, the situation is more complex.

Economic acceleration

At a governmental level, India has become a paragon of economic virtue as it adopts Western orthodoxy. A huge programme of “disinvestment” (privatization) has been put in place and inward investment has greatly increased; largely to the benefit of the much-lauded Indian middle class. At the same time, attitudes to social welfare have hardened among policy makers, with large tax breaks given to the well-off, while the nation’s poor become increasingly marginalized in both the political and economic debate.

Much effort has been spent since the 1990s undoing the structures put in place by post-Independence Congress governments. These championed state ownership, industrialization and an “India first” policy - indigenous production and consumption coupled with protectionist import policies. Alongside these were promulgated the belief in secularization and, to borrow a government slogan of the time, “unity through diversity”. The irony is that these nation-building ideas were radical solutions to the economic difficulties and fragmented nature of India’s post-colonial society. The British left India in a woeful state, in terms of both economic and human development. There was hardly any indigenous industry and literacy rates were exceptionally low. Recent economic commentators have tended to denigrate the legacy of Nehru (it was largely he who pushed through the post-Independence industrial policies), without acknowledging that the industrial base that they are so keen to see privatized, and the literate workforce that they foresee taking over call centre jobs from the West, are the products of precisely these earlier policies.

Religion and identity

The political discourse around the millennium was dominated by reactionary, right-wing Hinduism as espoused by the BJP, and economic liberalization. Although at first these seem strange bedfellows, given the disruption neo-liberal policies cause to people’s lives, religion and an aggressive promotion of the national myth are useful tools in keeping the populace onside while state and national governments push through unpopular measures.

In an Indian context this saw an individualization of Hindu identity, while at the same time there was an attempt to homogenize a highly disparate and eclectic group of beliefs and practices. Modern Hinduism, at least as promoted by the Sangh Parivar, is increasingly coming to resemble evangelical Christianity. An individual’s relationship with a deity and personal observance of ritual, rather than action for the social good, are seen as the key to salvation. Thus, limiting consumption and displays of wealth in the face of deprivation is of less spiritual importance than, say, taking part in the building of a new temple to Ram at Ayodhya.

This move away from Gandhian ideals has been accompanied by a more canonical approach to the religious text. Writings such as the Vedas, Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana have acquired the status of historical document rather than spiritual tract; they are statements of absolute fact, rather than guides towards universal truths that are open to interpretation. Modern right-wing Hinduism is far more interested in having a rigid rule book of rights and wrongs, than in the traditional subtleties of religious debate, which in the past made the Hindu world relatively inclusive and tolerant.

As with any hegemonic insistence on the observance of a series of rules, minority viewpoints suffered. In India this had the greatest effect on the country’s 100 million-plus Muslims. The national myth promoted by the BJP was fiercely anti-Islamic. For all the recent talks between the two countries, the external bogeyman has been largely identified as Pakistan, while Muslim Indian nationals were portrayed as an Islamic fifth column. The most distressing and vicious manifestation of this occurred in Gujarat in 2002, where at least 1,000 Muslims were killed in communal rioting. The BJP Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, was heavily implicated in the carnage but continues to enjoy the party’s protection.

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Guest writer: India is such a vast landscape with the Himalayan mountains and the Thar desert, plus rainforests. Its people, languages, and cultures are so varied. When thinking about your vacation to India, here are a few tips.

If you are coming to India from anywhere except Nepal or Bhutan, you will need a visa. Make sure to apply beforehand because visas on arrival are not granted.

Take into account any health issues or vaccinations you will need. Be concerned about diarrhea, malaria, tetanus, typhoid, and Hepatitas A/B. Except for diarrhea, vaccinations are available for all of them.

If you can, plan your trip taking into account India’s weather. Summer temperatures in May in India will commonly hit 100 or more. In the monsoon season from June to October, parts of India will have rain more than 4 days a week.

Generally you will arrive at one of the countries 5 major airports: Mumbai, Dehli, Bangalore, Chennai, or Kolkata. Depending on whether you’ve booked a tour or are on your own, you’re real journey will begin.

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