Regional development & Exclusion.

 Regional development is often translated into the term of spatial development or spatial change of society, and as such connected with terms such as 'social inclusion' that indicate the intrinsic role of regional (and urban) development in social reproduction. In the Indian context many regional developments not only attract the needy who sought to generate some significant earnings for their survival/growth, but also give rise to tampered mindset where our constitutional framework is challenged.These people or groups are enumerated with several socio~political and economic differences and exclusion.

Exclusion is a multidimensional process of progressive social rupture, detaching groups and individuals from social relations and institutions and preventing them from full participation in the normal, normatively prescribed activities of the society in which they live.

That arises broadly due to : 

- Migration

- Landlessness

- Indian disparity

Social exclusion has many contributors, in which major contributors include race, income, employment status, social class, geographic location, personal habits and appearance, education, religion, and political affiliation.

Development is often considered as the solution to all problems of a society or country but we are only shown one side of the coin the other side needs comprehension, many economist and noted jurist Iyer has highlighted several negative impacts like conflicts, displacements, deaths, and suicide, that are left unseen in the name of development.

India today is the victim of development disappearing mountains, depleting resources, and vast multitude of marginalized human beings await their turn to be scarificed for the unstoppable market hunger.

Development & Exclusion process

Its important for us to understand why certain groups or certain regions are poor compared to others, what can be comprehended from various studies is that there persist a significant gap that formulates due to market-oriented policy of the governments across the globe. India faces similar condition as drawn by Suryanarayan(2008), where his examination states that growth process between 1993-94 & 2004-05 has bypassed the majority and was not inclusive

Development brings disparity as its scale and nature could be different. The understanding of it depends on the way it is defined also formulated by Crush in his book of Power and Development (1995).

The 3rd world countries adopted terms like ‘Championing economic growth’, ‘catching up’, ‘providing governable subjects’ etc to highlight the importance of development for a better living standard obviously that cannot be denied at an individual level, as these aspects are equally important while understanding the process of social exclusion with development.

  

In India, poverty is seen as a vicious cycle it is not to overlook the other variables but to understand the other aspects its important to get a decentralized approach to critically examine the factors and different variables responsible for related kind of deprivations that accumulate on the exclusion in Indian society.

Majority of the developed or developing economies are striving to find a satisfactory answer to a basic question- why different regions (countries/state/districts) grow differently leading to different degrees of income and expenditure inequality and poverty. There cannot be a single answer to this, as there could be country or region specific factors like governance, institution, culture, the way of intervention etc play a dominant role in determining growth path. The great inequality among nations and in between regions of nations in terms of economic development is an undisputed reality. The concentration of development in terms of accumulation and affluence in few parts of the world or in different parts of the world or in different parts of the nation continues to be the law of nature across the globe. Even in most developed countries like USA or the industrial countries of western Europe, the same scenario was observed few decades back and once again regional inequality is on increase.

In India after independence its was government’s inability to maintain a high rate of public investment and its tendency to to shift its pattern of expenditure away from time to time had adverse effect on profitability of Industries. Initiatives in India for regional development started with a vision document of National Planning Commission chaired by Jawaharlal Nehru, the need of regional development was identified and reflected during Third plan period (1962-67) it was broadly accepted that a country or region can develop only if there is sufficient scale of Industrialization. Anyways, even after the establishment of Industries it did not actually bring any kind of change for the backward people who were supposed to benefit from this as none were given the skill set, further no efforts were made to analyze their condition .This resulted in widening the gap and forming deprived regions having lots of unemployed or retrenched labour force with old technique, unsuitable for employment in new industries crating a serious lag in them. Due to this we can see slums nearby a very lavish apartment where the gap is so big that one thinks what to spend on and one is rattled with the thought of spending for even the basic necessities.

Now looking at the prevalence of exclusion and it’s nexus with state policies:

Systematic exclusion and caste-based victimisation aggravated migrants’ plight in Gujarat

This report is based on a survey conducted by Ajeevika Bureau – an NGO working with the migrant community – stated that migrants cannot exercise their political rights as – in most of the cases – they lack voter ID cards and other government certified documents.

Migrants face systematic exclusion from urban policies, asserted the report titled “Unlocking the Urban: Reimagining Migrant Lives in cities post COVID-19”.

Stating that the COVID-19 pandemic was not the sole reason responsible for the ongoing crisis for migrant workers but aggravated the already existing crisis, the report said that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic exclusion of migrant workers from India’s urban and labor policies that deprived the working class of basic urban provisions of food, water, housing, sanitation and healthcare facilities.

Among 150 respondents in Surat (which has the highest ratio of migrants to locals in the country, forming 58 % of its total population and 70% of its waged workforce) 99% of workers reported

 

lack of access to ration cards, 74 percent were without voter ID cards, and 97 % without electricity bills.

“This is a reason why workers were left out of government benefits during the lockdown. There is a need for enumeration of workers to ensure the benefits reach them. Urban planning should recognize workers,” said Divya Varma, programme manager, policy and partnerships, Aajeevika Bureau.

The workers interviewed for the study had migrated from states like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Bihar.

The survey also said that majority of the workers were victimized on the basis of their caste and ethnicity. Most of them belonged to scheduled tribes, followed by scheduled castes.

Suggesting that immediate measures should be taken to integrate migrants in public provisioning, the report suggested universalization of PDS, adequate and safe shelter facilities for workers, access to healthcare facilities, and gender-specific measures like reaching out to women migrant workers in order to lessen the plight.

Way Forward:

There is a need to establish link between geographical and economic space as geographical space plays a major role in persistent regional exclusion. The pattern and structure of considering macro perspective of development must be replaced to measure development or poverty. This shift can be initiated in two ways :

1st- to analyse the process and variables that produce the existing socio-spatial inequalities rather than looking at casual variations.

2nd- strongly ignoring the national totalitarian or despotic framework of economy, polity, and society. We need to look beyond the central purview stated by the nation and focus critically on the inequalities and multidimensional aspects that evolve exclusion of various kinds.

According to Krugman(1991) understanding of trade and regional development also plays a significant role to figure out pattern and route to exclusion of a community.

With this, we also need to comprehend the industrial development that can bring social exclusion based on the conception of development which brings and evolve more and more gap among the communities.

We must understand that the dimensions for different society will be different as there are many variable processes that result in exclusion.

Conclusion:

As also pointed by Srinivas in 2003, the Indian caste based economy is at decline and economy based class-caste society is forming. Therefore going back to classical caste based social exclusion is not enough to address or bring positive change at different sites of exclusion which now evolve from dam sites, highway sides, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and Industrial sites. There is a need to utilize and comprehend the local knowledge and link local culture and practices in resource planning for development projects which take place at different levels rather than suggesting macro-level economic and technological prescriptions. Our approach

  

must change from the national macro lens to the pluralistic perspective where no community is left unseen. We must foster the traditional knowledge to give birth to an augmented reality for the better future.

“Development is about transforming the lives of the people not just transforming economies.” -Joseph Stiglitz

References: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281103267_Development_Poverty_and_Social_Exclusi

on_A_Regional_Perspective

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/systematic-exclusion-and-caste-based-victimisation- aggravated-migrants-plight-in-gujarat-report