Smita Srinivas	|   Print |
02.25.2008	|   PDF |

Consider the following three facts. First, approximately every sixth person in the world is Indian. Second, for the first time in the history of humankind, the majority of people live in urbanized regions, concentrating poverty in new ways. Third, India 's industrial sectors have distinct spatial characteristics that mirror caste, jati, and gender features of Indian workers. These citizens are poorly counted by both the government and unions. These facts raise critical questions about the number of Indians without basic food security, healthcare, shelter and employment options.

 

How should a country support hundreds of millions of citizens and workers who have no easily identifiable employer? What forms of security should it provide workers? How should we think about employment and social policy? If one listens to the pundits speaking of an 'India Shining,' one might imagine that we have addressed this contingency. However, if India imagines that its future is one of emulating the trends of the West, it may be in for a rude shock, given that the State does not even know who and where its citizens are.

 

The Smart Cards system proposed by the Planning Commission sounds impressive, but ignores the complex institutional realities of why people are currently unregistered. What is our system of enumeration that will guarantee them access to viable (and mobile) social security, and importantly, how does it link with systems that local groups across India have operational already?

 

The risks to poor Indians are large and even for the working, ill-health, loss of employment itself, or any other contingency can wipe out employment gains and savings. A comprehensive set of social security measures would include healthcare and insurance, maternity benefits, unemployment coverage, old age/pensions, and disability and life insurance. Even in the so-called "organized" sector, with the possible exception of civil services, a very large insecurity exists with increasing sub-contracting, and debatable conditions of work. The fact that progressive legislation for workers has existed for decades in the country, makes the reality of lack of realistic access to basic social securities arguably even more damning.

 

Have the conservatives got it right? Should India wait for large periods of economic growth followed and to some degree paralleled by some redistribution? Or is something more urgent called for? Across India , community, non-governmental and private programs in healthcare and health insurance are on the rise. In the past decade, the largest out-of-pocket expenditures have been by some of India 's poorest on private healthcare. Economic hawks use this to argue for less government and more economic growth. Certainly, the latter probably will. However, there is little evidence that India cannot afford a universal health insurance scheme, or a universal Social Security mandate. Deep institutional cleavages also need much further attention and investigation.

 

The Indian State , through the idea of a binding national social compact has attempted in various ways to provide several programs to minimize risks. This model was primarily articulated as a modernizing fabric linking together diverse 'traditional' elements in a secular way leading to 'modern' India . However, India 's post-independence history has not included any particular emphasis on work-based social insurance except for a tiny minority.

 

So why doesn't India , with even greater uncertainties against a shifting world, have a national social security or insurance program? The reasons often given are that India is too large, too many workers are too poor to make contributions, too many are self-employed, or it would be too expensive, and that too much corruption is inevitable. However, we might want to reconsider the facts about India 's inability to provide such a program. If we compare India to China , our health record is dismal. Even if we ignore comparisons with other countries, conditions within India are changing. Several regional governments have shown that initiatives in health and labor equity are indeed possible, although the evidence on full implementation is patchy.

 

India 's policy makers, bred in a system of Center and states, have taken the dynamics of localized labor markets as self-evident. How more localized programs for social security (of which there are now many) might link, scale-up, or fragment, has received little attention, which is surprising given the increasing dynamism of several cities in the country and the very real challenges to pooling risks and administering registration rolls across large distances.

 

 

 

 

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Smita Srinivas isAssistant Professor of Urban Planning and Director of the Technological Change and Urban Social Policy research unit at Columbia University .