Sixty years after independence, India is accelerating fast, but is everyone in the same race? Martin Wroe and Malcolm Doney report.

How many Indias are there? “Three,” claims the 23-year-old assistant manager at the upscale Oberoi Hotel in Kolkata. “The rich, the neo-rich and the poor.” And to which one does she belong? “I’m from the upper middle class.”

No, insists a taxi-driver in Delhi, there are five Indias, bracketed at either end by the super-rich of Bollywood and the extreme poor of urban slum and remote village. “I live with my wife and children in a single room, I am in the fourth class, one up from the bottom.”

An international development consultant in in Bhubaneswar, Orissa also counts five Indias, but explains it more lyrically: “There is India on two feet, on four legs, on two wheels, on four wheels… and then there’s the jet set.”A go-getting 26-year-old brand manager in a dynamic IT company in Noida, near Delhi, takes a more Darwinian view.There are two Indias, she says: “There are those that are ready to do something, and those that don’t want to do anything.”

Sixty years after gaining independence from Britain, India is changing like never before. If no-one can agree on how many Indias there are, more and more are coming round to the view that one India could be history – the India that was the world’s most populous poor country.

“India is booming,” explains Ranna Gill, one of the country’s leading fashion designers, speaking at her new shop in the library-quiet and gleaming opulence of Delhi’s Crescent fashion mall.The new edition of Cosmo is on the counter, the cover featuring Bollywood actress and UK Big Brother star Shilpa Shetty, resplendent in a dress made by Gill.The pair epitomize contemporary global India.With its shimmering skyscrapers and booming IT sector, glamourous stars and billionaires, this is the India of such powerful economic growth that, if all goes to plan, it could power South Asia into meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

IT has been critical in the rapid globalisation of India with exports from this sector alone expected to top $60 billion by 2010. HCL Technologies, specializing in software design and ‘Business Process Outsourcing’ (BPO) services, is the country’s fastest growing ICT company and epitomizes this boom. Back in 1976 it was the original garage start-up, with six men in a lockup building computers before Silicon Valley was even heard of. Now it has 40,000 employees in 17 countries, revenues of around $4 billion, and employs more UK citizens than any other Indian company – including more than 2,500 of them in call centres in Armagh and Belfast.

BPO is a sensitive issue for many Indian companies, with pay and working conditions variable, and a 2005 VV Giri National Institute of Labour report describing some BPO centres as ‘Roman slave galleys’. Nonetheless young graduates with good English are queuing for jobs in the sector, where salaries are currently rising by 12-15% a year.

In cities from Delhi to Mumbai, Kolkata to Bangalore, it is not hard to see the evidence of India’s unprecedented economic boom. If present growth rates of 8% plus continue it will be the fourth largest economy in the world within 20 years. A country, for so long typecast by images of the Catholic nun Mother Teresa tending the malnourished poor of urban Calcutta, now Kolkata, is now seeing an alarming surge in Type Two Diabetes, a disease normally associated with the overindulgence and sedentary lifestyle of the US and northern Europe.

But if the booming India of Bollywood, and business outsourcing is headline news, the deeper question is whether the new rich in India are leaving the old poor behind – or whether the benefits of a careering economy can help lift the poorest from poverty.

“I compare India to the Wild West,” says restaurateur Andrea Adtab Pauro, sitting at a table in his smart new Italian restaurant in New Delhi. “The middle class is on the move, but we’re in a huge transition which could take many years. How come there is so much money pouring into the country, and yet still every day I pass naked, five-year-old children living alone under bridges?”

The Government does not dispute the challenge, which is captured succinctly by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. “If those who are better off do not act in a more socially responsible manner, our growth process may be at risk, our polity may become anarchic and our society may get further divided.We cannot afford these luxuries.”

So can the new wealth help end poverty for India’s majority? The signs are mixed. Deaths of children under five, for example, fell from 123 per thousand to 90 between 1990 and 2002, but 47% of children in this country of 1.1 billion remain malnourished. While a promising 90% of children now attend primary school, each year a million women and children die due to lack of health care.

If, anecdotally, there are multiple developmentally it’s possible to outline three distinct identities:

Poorest India describes the 350-400 million people who live on less than $1 a day, notably in the Hindi belt in the central north and east and among historically excluded groups such as scheduled castes and tribes (see box, right), and also including Muslims and many women and girls.

Developing India captures, in developmentspeak, the India where average annual per capita income is just $630. There are 500 million people who have their heads above water – but only just. They have enough to eat, somewhere to live and can send their children to school… but not much more.

‘Global’ India by contrast is riding the wave of annual growth of over 8% since 2002 which, by 2012, will see average per capita incomes passing $825 and India graduating to the ranks of a ‘Middle Income Country’.

But perhaps such generalisms are unreliable, and only the poorest people can really tell us whether national economic prosperity is providing a stepping stone from endemic poverty.

Making over the slums Kolkata, the tenth most populous metropolis in the world and gateway of South Asia has long been an attractive destination for thousands in search of better livelihoods.The main road out of the city to the Kishane Pully Slum is regularly flooded during the rainy season, cars ploughing through the water like speedboats, while screaming children paddle at either side. But at the slum itself the newly paved walkways are clear of water – and while the field backing onto it has become a small lake, a newly erected flood barrier keeps its waters from overwhelming the hundreds of one-storey shacks.

“When I was a child the very worst bit of living here was the flooding,” recalls Sheila Das, 28 , a resident for 20 years who today shares accommodation with both her and her husband’s parents.“We had to walkalong slushy,muddy roads to get our water – and there was only a single tap for the whole slum.There was no paved road before, no water supply, no electricity.”

But life has changed: “When the standpipes and drains arrived, this was one of the biggest improvements because flooding is now very unusual. Now some people even have their own taps, it is so much better.”

Life in the slum has been transformed since Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor (KUSP) began supporting 40 urban bodies in improving urban planning and governance, helping create access for the poor to services like water, sanitation and health. DFID has been a key player in the scheme, committing more than £100 million for improvement in roads, drainage, sanitation and water supply in 339 slums.There are around 750 people in the Kishane Pully Slum – the men are taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers or factory workers, while the women, if they work,

are domestic helpers or home workers. Improvements to the infrastructure have multiple benefits from health to education and employment and, slowly, they are offering some of the poorest people in West Bengal a route out of grinding poverty.

Since KUSP intervened, says Sheila, it’s not just the physical environment that is better. “There is a general improvement in health and a big drop in people getting diarrhoeal diseases.”

Back to school

There are other spin-offs – school attendance for one. “Installing brick pathways or roads instead of mud ones has a striking effect on school attendance, for example girls are much more likely to go to school if the road is a good one.”

Sheila’s daughters of 10 and 8, go to the local primary school, with every prospect of staying several more years. While she stayed in school until Class 5, her mother went to school for only a year.

Israh Parveen, 24, now works in a KUSPsupported community embroidery project. As a Muslim, she underlines how important clean, safe roads are in opening up access to education. “Previously Muslim girls had no access to education simply because of the state of the roads, but now wecan travel to school which is changing our prospects.”

Other benefits, she says, are harder to explain but just as real, such as strengthened communal and social bonds. “There used to be a lot of fights between the men, it could be very violent if a dispute broke out but now we have a new system for people to resolve disputes through arbitration.”

“Once the infrastructure is improved,” explains Gobinda Ganguly, Chairman of Kamarhati Municipality, “the people can afford to improve their residences. The land value also goes up whichmeans some people can get a partner to invest in helping them build a house instead of a shack.”

The key to the success of slum regeneration is including the poor in the decision making process.“We are trusting the poorer people in developing their slum areas,” Mr Ganguly continues “and the awareness of people is coming up, they are feeling that they must make their slums better and that it is worthpaying the user charges – for water for example – in order to keep them well.”

When mother doesn’t know best With around 70% of India’s population living in rural areas, key developmental challenges in the country as well as in the city have to be faced – and no challenge is greater than improving child and maternal health.

In the remote village of Maltore, a half hours drive from Purulia in West Bengal, the local community’s maternal health and children’s nutrition adviser, is sitting in her cramped ‘consultation room’ and talking to a circle of pregnant women or new mothers.They listen carefully – aware that what they are being told could be the difference between life and death for their children.

“I weigh their babies regularly,” she explains. “I talk with them about the need for immunisations, I explain how to wash a new baby with clean water, I talk all about good diet. If I think a child is in need of special help I help them get a eferral to a doctor.” Under the nationwide Integrated Child Development Scheme, an ‘anganwadi’ worker, is provided for every population of 1,000, and trained in health, nutrition and child development. Traditionally, for example, many new mothers in rural India, have chosen not to begin breastfeeding their babieson the first day of life – a time when such feeding is particularly beneficial, not least in boosting a newborn’s immune system. The anganwadi will try to dissuade them from this practice and, in tandem with other health advice, child health is improving.

“I used to be upset that so many children got sick and died,” says one mother. “But there has been a change and now I am so happy at what is happening.”

Paid a monthly fee of about £20 by the State government, the local anganwadi works with 99 children in the village where, she says, previously there would have been “at least three deaths every year”.This year there have been no fatalities.

A map of the village on the wall of her consulting room shows all the local households and indicates where the most vulnerable families are living. Posters explain the importance of the right diet. Stick-figure drawings of babies, indicate which mothers have turned up to appointments and which have not–dramatically, a missing leg or arm on a stick figure shows a missed session. The shock tactics seem to work – most of the drawings are complete.

Countryside alliance

Creating viable livelihoods is critical if people are to take advantage of social investment in improved living conditions and health. And around 400km away in the village of Budamunda,Western Orissa, Purhami Dharua has taken a gamble on an innovative form of new income. She has persuaded her 12-strong women’s Self Help Group to purchase 20 ducks as a way of generating income. She’s even handed over a small area of her meagre land, and the hut that was once her home, as an enclosure to house the birds. Starting a duckery is not a complete shot in the dark. “I used to have a couple of ducks myself and it worked quite well,” she explains, “So I suggested the idea and the others agreed.”

They did their research and selected a breed known as ‘moti’ (literally ‘pearl’) from the distinctive ‘bubbles’ on the birds’ heads.These are hardy, disease-resistant birds which do not require a pond to swim in, so they can be kept in an enclosure like chickens. Six of the ducks are male, so that they can raise ducklings as well as sell eggs.There is a local market both for the eggs and the meat. However, the women are cautious, they want to see whether this will work and have therefore limited their investment to a trial. Purhami Dharua is optimistic. “I’m confident this will succeed.”

One compelling ground for hope is that they are not doing this as individuals, but as a group. “By doing this together,we can keep all the ducks in one place,we can buy feed in bulk, which cuts down the cost, and there are other benefits as well. We help one another. If one of us can’t afford to send one of our children to school, the group helps. And at festivals we celebrate together too.”

Co-operative ventures like this are backed by the Western Orissa Rural Livelihoods Programme (WORLP), a DFIDsupported initiative which works with poor communities in four districts to foster long-term social change.These districts are among the poorest and least developed in India, with up to 70% of the 4 million people earning less than $1 a day. Levels of infant mortality, maternal mortality and literacy are also poor, with some social indicators rivalling those of sub-Saharan Africa. A high proportion of these people are from scheduled tribes and castes (see page 6).

Watershed moment

WORLP also works with the Orissa Development Watersheds Mission, an Indian government programme, to address problems caused by erratic rainfall in the region and a poor record of water harvesting. Surveys have identified watersheds in the area and support provides help to communities to restore existing means of water capture such as ponds and reservoirs as well as to create new ones. “Basically, where water runs, we want to make it walk,” says Sudin K, a technical support worker with WORLP, “Where it walks we want to make it stop”.

The Watershed Mission is of most benefit to those who have land, but the forest dwellers, and those with poor land were being left behind until WORLP introduced ‘watershed plus’.This intensive programme brings together local people in order to identify their needs and then help them decide what action has to be taken. This is a slow and arduous process in any community, but doubly so where such a high proportion of people have been socially excluded.“We have to recognise that India’s growth has not been inclusive,” says Sudin K. “For centuries such people have been disadvantaged, stigmatised as ‘primitive’ and excluded.”

As a result there is a kind of cultural inferiority complex which makes it hard for many people to see the potential of new opportunities or to take advantage of them. It takes at least nine months to build rapport with village communities, and to persuade them of the value of developing committees in order to assess needs and institute plans. Unpredictable factors, such as personal animosities, local political rivalries and other disputes inevitably slow the process but in Budamunda village it is possible to see how worthwhile that effort has been. Just over 600 people live here and around a half of the women have joined some form of Self Help Group, such as the Maa Mangala group which has bought the ducks. Others are involved in breeding fish, raising goats, and growing mushrooms. An enterprising group of young women who have embarked on tailoring training is already reaping rewards as they produce clothes for sale in the local market.

A group of 15 men have joined together to raise goats and Shyamsundar Sandha, who acts as secretary for the goatherders, says it makes all kinds of sense. “Together we can access loans,we can share our animal husbandry experience, and the vet only needs to make one visit which saves us money,” he enthuses. “And we’re also banding together to save money for drugs so we can treat the animals ourselves.”

It’s early days, but the new income is already boosting living standards and the prospects for development.“ I want to send my children to school,” says one. “I’ll extend my house,” chimes another. “I’ll be able to feed my family better”, says a third.

Organised into groups, not only can the people in Western Orissa access grants and small loans, they are gaining confidence in their ability to make change. One small but significant change, says Dipti Behera, human resources officer for the Bolangir district, “Before, if anyone arrived in a village with a car, people would hide.Now, they come out to see what’s going on.”

More ambitiously still,women in a number of villages, have discovered to their surprise that traditional ponds or ‘ghats’ – which had always been monopolised by richer landowners – were actually commonly held, and that they too had rights to their use. As a result it is not unusual for women’s Self Help Groups to outbid landowners at annual ‘auctions’ in order to use the water for fisheries.

A multiplicity of similar stories in and around Western Orissa, are founded in a complex and much needed multi-agency approach bringing together healthcare, sanitation, education, conservation, agriculture and the development of human resources.The success of an organisation like WORLP has been in integrating these essential ingredients and unsurprisingly other parts of India are beginning to sit up and take notice. “We gather together,we discuss things,” explains Purhami Dharua, of her duck-raising collective. “It’s good. I’m sure the ducks will work, but if it doesn’t we’ll try goats.”

City living

A similar tale of rising incomes and sustainable livelihoods can also be told in urban India, this time with another group of homeworkers on the outskirts of Delhi. A group of ten women, sitting in a one-room house, are describing the difference in their lives as embroiderers and jewellery makers, since they enrolled with SEWA – the Self-Employed Women’s Association.

“I am now getting a much better rate of pay for doing the same eight hours a day,” explains Asma, 18. Not only has her take-home pay doubled, but working conditions have also improved:

“The contractors used to pressure us a lot,” recalls Zeenet. “Sometimes we had to work day and night to be sure we would be paid but that has changed and we are now working for ourselves, which means we have time for our families.”

Best of all,” says Fareeda, 32, her young baby sleeping under her sari,“We are becoming independent women. I used to have to rely on my husband for money but now I can earn money myself and do what I want with it.” I feel so good that I can earn money for myself and my children, not only for the school fees but also to do some saving.” SEWA, started by Elaben Bhatt in 1972 as a small trade union of women workers in the informal economy, is transforming life for tens of thousands of women in India. Focused on organising women through Self Help Groups, co-operatives and federations, its work extends from micro finance, Social Security and housing to education and creating market linkages. Employment, says Renana Jhabvala Chair of SEWA Bharat is the vital link between economic growth and poverty. If the 30 million women in India’s informal homeworker sector can be paid properly for their role in a growing economy, they will be instrumental in helping their families climb from poverty. The UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), she says, has been vital in persuading household name,multi-national companies to introduce codes of conduct through their supply chains. “A few years ago the big companies weren’t bothered about ethical trading, but now they are very concerned and it’s connected to the pressure of their consumers in the West.”

No sooner had the spotlight of publicity been shone on the supply chains of some of these companies, than the changes came. “The rates of pay rose and our people started being paid on time.”

Shenaz, 35, who works up to 12 hours a day in the one room she shares with her seven children, pays tribute to SEWA for boosting her take-home pay.“With regular work you get good money now,” she says, methodically sewing bangles onto purses for sale in western high streets. “I have some independence now, I can spend my money on my children.”

A key achievement of SEWA has been to shrink the length of the supply chain–cutting out the take of middle men so that producers can earn more for their work. Successfully introducing micro-finance and savings schemes has enabled many women to put money aside for important events – from schooling to weddings.And all the research suggests that when a woman has an income she will reinvest a far greater amount of it in the wellbeing of her family than a man with the same amount.“Women are gaining financial power,” says Renana Jhabvala. “They will play the critical role in helping India climb from poverty.”

Spreading the benefits

While the hi-tech corporations of the new India grab the headlines for the profits they deliver, some of them are also trying to foster broader development.The HCL Group, for example, has established a leading university, the SSN Institutions in Chennai, to provide education and research in biomedical engineering, IT and management.The company, says Saurav Adhikari, Corporate Vice President for Strategy, is also “trying to bring employment opportunities to poor areas of cities and increase their skill sets. By no means is it enough, but our head and heart are in the right place”.

The stories of Purhaumi Daura with her duck raising collective and Rana Gill with her fashion empire, of embroiderers in one-room shacks and the giants of IT world might seem to come from different countries. But from urban slum to remotest rural village, the signs are in this sprawling and complex sub continent, that the rising wealth of India may yet transform the lives of the country’s poorest people.

What nobody can predict is how long it will take. If the speed of Global India’s progress is breathtaking, the progress of the poor is more dogged.The rise of global India is measured in ‘lakhs’ (hundreds of thousands) of rupees.The struggles of the poor are counted in hundreds. As the country celebrated sixty years of independence from Britain this summer and Delhi’s Red Fort echoed to the sound of cannon, India’s flag flying free where the British Union Jack was lowered forever in 1947, it cannot afford to be too triumphalistic.

“Sixty years ago we started a new journey,” said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as he raised the flag.“We were inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts and views. But in the true sense,” he added,“we will have freedom and independence only when we get rid of poverty.” Only, maybe, when there is one India.

Castes and outcasts

Indian society is divided into three broad ‘social’ categories: the caste communities, the outcaste communities and the indigenous peoples. These last two categories are referred to in the Indian Constitution respectively as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).

The term ‘Scheduled Castes’ refers to anyone who falls beneath the four caste communities (the Brahmans – priests, the Kshatriyas – rulers and warriors, the Vaishyas – merchants and the Shudras – labourers), which are established on the basis of varna, an ancient cosmic-moral scheme of fixed-categorisation.

The precise origins of caste and untouchability are unclear shrouded in myth and history. However, the development of the caste system and the practice of untouchability are generally ascribed to the (disputed) Aryan invasion of India around 1500 BCE.

Previously known as the ‘untouchables’, SCs nowadays refer to themselves as ‘Dalits’ (meaning ‘oppressed’ or ‘broken’). They make up about 20% of the Indian population and still suffer from social and religious exclusion and economic exploitation by upper castes. They are among the poorest of India’s poor.

The Scheduled Tribes (STs) comprise various indigenous and tribal people who do not fall within the Caste System and who prefer to be called ‘Adivasis’ (the original inhabitants of the land). Their existence is threatened by rapid modernisation and industrialisation which, along with cultural erosion, lead to displacement and alienation from land, which is their principal source of livelihood. As a result, they too are most likely to be extremely poor.

But in modern India, change is under way. The opening of the country to global market forces has virtually destroyed the traditional jajmani distinctions which determine which castes undertake which occupation. The boundaries limiting interaction between upper and lower castes are now much more porous. Nevertheless, caste is emerging as determining factor in Indian politics. For example the Bahujan Samaj Party whose central tenet is to seek retributive justice on behalf of Dalits is now a major political player in Uttar Pradesh.

Nevertheless, despite these transitions which seem to subvert the traditional operation of caste-based power, the paradox of India is that Scheduled Castes in several parts of India continue to face discrimination, exclusion and exploitation.

Peniel Rajkumar

DFID in India

Over the last five years the UK has provided about £1,095 million to India in aid. In 2007/08 we will provide £266 million, in 2008/09, £290 million.

As well as working at the national level DFID supports programmes in several focus states: Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal and, shortly, Bihar.

Health

As well as supporting Indian Government nationwide schemes, we focus on :

• Reproductive and child health programmes which aim to reduce the maternal mortality rate from 300 to 100 per 100,000 live births, and infant mortality rate from 57 to 30 per 1000 live births by 2015.
• A national polio eradication programme which aims to interrupt transmission of the wild polio virus and achieve total eradication in India by 2010.
• A national tuberculosis control programme which expects to more than halve the number of annual deaths from TB by 2015. India’s 15 million TB patients account for nearly one third of all cases worldwide.
• Health sector reform in West Bengal, which will improve provision, access and equitable use of health services. We are beginning state-level health sector support in Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

HIV and AIDS

DFID funds the National Aids Control Programme and partners the National Aids Control organisation promoting safer behaviour among high risk groups.

Education

DFID supports the Indian Government’s Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme designed to achieve universal elementary education in India by 2010. Enrolments for 2004/05 among the 6-14 years age group reached 94%.

Governance

DFID supports the Centre for Good Governance, established by the Government of Andhra Pradesh to help with governance reforms. The Indian Government wants to replicate this model for other parts of the country.

More information:

www.dfid.gov.uk