By Pawan Varma

A recent survey came to the surprising conclusion that India has one of the largest corpus of good laws in the world and the poorest track-record in the implementation of these laws. This alarming juxtaposition must make us think. Together, India's business, political, and social establishments must, in this millennium, short-circuit this monstrous co-existence between good intentions, as reflected in our laws, and the subversion of these intentions, as evident in our poor implementation.

The options before us, at the dawn of the 21st Century, are limited. A third of our population lives in abject poverty. Another third hovers threateningly close to the poverty-line. India is, often, dubbed the world's single-largest illiterate nation. The number of illiterate people in India is more than the combined population of the US, Canada, and parts of Europe. We are still grappling with diseases that most of the world has consigned to history. Diseases like malaria and diarrhoea kill more people in India than, perhaps, anywhere else. India's malnutrition rate for children is worse than Africa's.

Our problems, therefore, are immense. We need to examine them in their plenitude. We need to look beyond the mesmerising limitations of the blinkers we have created where we see what we want to. Thus, most of us of the middle classes have chosen to surround ourselves with the glitz of TV, the high-rise illusion of our cities, the jargon of globalisation, the seduction of our new economic policies, and the deceptive assurance of some of the lifestyles of the elite, which go quite beyond even the sustainable hedonism of the first world, and are certainly far removed from the swirling reality of the third world just outside our doors.

There are, undoubtedly, some achievements of which we can be proud at the beginning of the century. We are proud to be a democracy; we have retained our unity; our scientists have done us proud; and we are self-sufficient in terms of food. But the qualitative change we hope to achieve will remain a mirage unless we learn to read the script as it is-and not as we believe it is.

Given the magnitude of these problems, what solutions can we expect? Is it possible that a charismatic leader will emerge overnight and change this reality with a wave of a magic wand? Will we witness a major restructuring of our society as happened in China or the former Soviet Union? Is it possible that some new technology will so revolutionise the production process that the undernourished and penurious demographic burden that threatens to swamp us will be suddenly transformed? Can we sit back and rely on the percolation theory of economics to work its wonders by trickling down and better the lives of the vast number of people who are yet to see some of the basics that we take for granted?

I do not believe that any of the above is likely. Nothing, not even the percolation theory, will work. This millennium, therefore, requires us to identify and adopt solutions that work. In this context, I believe 2 factors are of importance: one, the ability of the middle and the elite class to look beyond their own little worlds; and two, the universal resolve to improve the quality of governance.

The relatively privileged in India are convinced that they are a harassed lot. This isn't totally untrue. The average person from a middle-class household has to contend with a lot of municipal concerns: water, electricity, transport, housing, red tape, and pollution. Thus, contrary to what was expected by our economic planners when they announced the new economic policies, the Indian middle class, although large in numbers, is the middle class of a poor country. This fact will continue, in this millennium, to condition the desire of the middle class to better its lot.

What is, therefore, needed, is a quantum jump in the social sensitivity of the middle and the elite classes. It is only when those who are better-off in India begin to link their long-term well-being to the improvement of those less well-off that this millennium will be different from the last. And what will prompt this change is enlightened long-term self-interest-not idealism.

The second factor-good governance-could well be the key to India's progress in this millennium. Governance, in turn, is linked to the resolve of all constituents of the larger Indian society to behave as citizens. For most part of the previous century, we invested huge sums in education, healthcare, public services, and developmental programmes. Today, we need to focus not on whether more money could have been made available in these areas, but on how we can now ensure that extant investments produce optimal results. This is a matter of governance.

Towards the end of the 20th Century, we witnessed significant examples of better governance bringing about a change in the quality of life of the targeted beneficiaries. Surat, which managed to resurrect an epidemic last heard of during the medieval period is, today, one of the cleaner cities in Western India-a result of better governance. It is said that the last thing N. Chandrababu Naidu, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, does before retiring to bed around midnight is to check the removal of garbage from different parts of the city. These are examples of better governance catalysed by good leadership. Such efforts need to be replicated at all levels, not just in the government, but outside it, including business' interface with society.

Today, India needs to ensure that its citizens are able to pick themselves up from where they have fallen between many stools and, consequently, believe that the government shall deliver, or somebody else will. The truth is, neither the government nor the corporate sector will deliver unless their performance is vigilantly monitored by aware citizens, who transcend the narrow confines of immediate-gains.

Thus, the prospects of India in this millennium depend on the new citizen. Such citizens must emerge, in larger numbers, from across the middle class sprawl of urban India, and from the newly-empowered rural agrarian castes. Having emerged, they must, while industriously pursuing their mainstream concerns work to ensure that the perennially marginalised in the country become a permanent fixture on the radar-screen of their consciousness-in terms of concern, and good governance. Only then will India change and achieve its potential, not for the benefit of a few privileged classes, but for the benefit of all its peoples. And only then will the New Millennium see a New India.

Pawan Varma is a Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs

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