The Ghost of Garibi Hatao haunts Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as he revisits grandma's slogan as PM Modi mocks asking : Are you a Royal Magician ?

 

Is Garibi Hatao an illusion in India or have governments made any serious attempt to eradicate poverty and pull up the per capita income?

Ashe N Ayer

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi revisited his grandmothers most popular election slogan “ Garibi Hatao “( Eradicate Poverty)  made in 1971 but, poverty has remained more or less the same declining by only marginal trends, through some 13 successive prime ministers after the iron lady from different parties ranging from the first Jawaharlal Nehru to Ms. Indira Gandhi to Messrs. Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh, Chandrasekhar, Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Narendra Modi.

“Garibi Hatao” (meaning abolish poverty) was the theme and slogan of Indira Gandhi’s 1971 Election Bid and later also used by her son Rajiv Gandhi. The slogan and the proposed anti-poverty programs that came with it were designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor.

Rahul Gandhi, often referred to as “Pappu” ( small kid) by the then opposition and ruling party even now for his flippant comments, did not get his poll strategists to do their home work on the poverty index between 1971 to 2024. Mrs Gandhi coined the slogan for the first time to sell a dream to the people below the poverty line , she knew it was not going to be easy, but she did as she knew such slogans sell.

But before people could actually find out if poverty had come down, came the massive infux refugees from East Bengal to India in millions that she was forced to intervene militarily to liberate the country and carve a new nation Bangladesh , one of the reasons that has given birth to terrorists funded by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI giving no moment to rest for Indian prime ministers.

Garibi Hatao went into the back burner and people were singing paeans of praise for Mrs G, who had become an iron lady to be compared in history later to the British Prime Minister Ms Margaret Thatcher of the conservatives who rules for three terms, a record. She wrote herself into history with Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw who liberated East Pakistan from the attorcities of the Pakistani army on the local Bengalis despite the treat of the ally US moving into the Indian Ocean its 7^th fleet to prevent the Indian army from entering East Pakistan. Sheer defiance of a super power made her a hero of the day. Garibi Hato went out of the window.

Rahul Gandhi , propably out of ideas after Prime Minister Narendra Modi tore into the Congress manifesto and labeled it as the Muslim Leagues manifesto for reversing CAA and UCC, was caught flat footed by visiting grandmas Garibi Hatao slogan , 53 years later, without verifying the figures to give the charismatic and oratorically skilled Prime Minister Narendra Modo to mock him and ask ; Congress he Shehzade, Itney saal kahan they, Shahi jadugar ( Where were you the prince of Congress , the grand magician ?). Modi is a clever politician and he know what areas to visit to sloganeer and what not to visit, but pappu seems still a novice. Anyway Modi is the master of the deal in sloganeering. But never a garibi hatao from him.

Let’s look at how poverty has declined over the years. The eastern state of Bihar still has the highest incidence of poverty at 44.4% and the southern state Kerala, alternatively under Congress and the Communists, the lowest – it has the highest literacy rate in the country.

India has the highest poverty rate at the global level at over 46% when compared to the neighbouring countries in the Asian continent. NITI AYOG, , better known as the Planning Commission during the days of the Congress did an extensive poverty survey in 2021. 

Poverty in India as of 2024 – A NITI AYOG LOOk

According to the recently released NITI Aayog report on the Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, around 135 million Indians (One-tenth of the population) managed to escape poverty between 2016 and 2021, with significant progress observed in ‘standard of living’ indicators contributing to this positive change.

Notably, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UP) together accounted for a substantial portion of this progress, with 56.8 million individuals from these two states successfully moving out of multidimensional poverty. The report also indicates that the number of Indian states with less than 10% multidimensional poverty.

According to a United Nations report. , witnessed a remarkable achievement of 415 million people coming out large section of the population. In 2005/2006, approximately 645 million people were experiencing multidimensional poverty. This number decreased to about 370 million in 2015/2016 and further declined to about 230 million in 2019/2021. These figures illustrate a of poverty over a span of 15 years.

This significant progress represents a positive transformation in the economic and social conditions substantial positive change, reflecting the success of poverty alleviation efforts in the country during this period of al poverty has doubled in a span of 5 years.

As per the latest poverty report from the government think tank NITI Ayog, the count of states with a population of less than 10 percent living in multidimensional poverty has doubled during the period between 2016 and 2021. Over a span of 5 years, India’s poverty has decreased by 10%.

India has made remarkable progress in reducing multidimensional poverty, witnessing a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points. The number of multi-dimensionally poor individuals in the country decreased from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-21.

In 2015-16, approximately one in four Indians (24.85 percent) met the criteria for multidimensional poverty. However, by 2019-21, this percentage significantly decreased to 14.96 per cent, which translates to approximately one in seven individuals living in multidimensional poverty. This represents a substantial improvement in poverty reduction over the specified period.

Indeed, there has been significant progress in poverty reduction in Bihar and other states between 2015-16 and 2019-21. In 2015-16, more than 51.89 percent of Bihar’s population lived in multidimensional poverty. However, by 2019-21, this figure had decreased to 33.76 percent. This means that while one out of every two persons in Bihar was living in multidimensional poverty in 2015-16, the number has now improved to one in three individuals.

Similarly, Jharkhand managed to reduce the percentage of people living under multidimensional poverty from 42 per cent in 2015-16 to 28.82 per cent in 2019-21. Uttar Pradesh saw a decline from 37.68 per cent to 22.93 per cent, and in Madhya Pradesh, multidimensional poverty dropped from 36.57 per cent to 20.63 per cent. These improvements signify substantial progress in poverty alleviation efforts in these states during the specified period.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing major economy. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), at the growth rate of 11.5%, India is going to be the fastest growing economy in 2023. The world’s only country to register a double-digit growth in 2023.

Earlier, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021 was released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

Key Points

About: The MPI sought to measure poverty on multiple dimensions. Actually it in effect complements existing poverty statistics relying on per capita consumption expenditure.

The Global MPI 2021 indicated that  India’ was ranked 66 out of 109 countries. The National MPI is aimed at deconstructing the Global MPI with a view to creating globally aligning and still customising India MPI for drawing up comprehensive Reform Action Plans that target at improving India’s position in the Global MPI rankings.

And this is predominantly drawn into three equally weighted dimensions – health, education, and standard of living. These three dimensions represent 12 indicators such as nutrition, school attendance, years of schooling, drinking water, sanitation, housing, bank accounts among others.

Methodology & Data employed.  The national MPI measure employs the globally accepted and robust norm developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the UNDP. This baseline report of the national MPI measure references 2015-16 of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4).

NFHS-4 data takes into account the baseline multidimensional poverty to dermine the ground level situation before the full rollout of various central government schemes.

NFHS-4 precedes the full roll out of (central government’s) flagship schemes on housing, drinking water, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, financial inclusion, and other major efforts towards improving school attendance, nutrition, mother and child health, etc.

The NFHS-5 data suggested there is an improvement in providing access to clean cooking fuel, sanitation, and electricity meaning a reduction in deprivation.

Findings of the Index: Poverty Levels: Bihar has the highest proportion of people of the state’s population followed by Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh who are multi-dimensionally poor. Kerala registered the lowest population poverty levels, followed by Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Goa and Sikkim.

Malnourished People: Bihar also has the highest number of malnourished people followed by Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.

Index’s Significance: The Contribution by way of Instituting Public Policy Tool:

The development of the Index is an important contribution towards instituting a public policy tool which monitors multidimensional poverty, informs evidence-based and focused interventions, thereby ensuring that no one is left behind.

Overall Picture of Poverty: This presents an overall picture of poverty in the country, while also enabling closer and more in-depth analyses of areas of interest such as regions – state or districts, and specific sectors and complements the existing monetary poverty statistics.

Enabling Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): This helps measures the progress towards the target 1.2 of the SDG. It helps reduce at reducing “at least by half the proportion of Poverty in India 2024. 

According to the recently released NITI Aayog report on the Multidimensional Poverty Index 2023, around 135 million Indians (One-tenth of the population) managed to escape poverty between 2016 and 2021, with significant progress observed in ‘standard of living’ indicators contributing to this positive change.

Notably, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UP) together accounted for a substantial portion of this progress, with 56.8 million individuals from these two states successfully moving out of multidimensional poverty. The report also indicates that the number of Indian states with less than 10% multidimensionAccording to a United Nations report, India has witnessed a remarkable achievement of 415 million people coming out of poverty over a span of 15 years. This significant progress represents a positive transformation in the economic and social conditions of a large section of the population. In 2005/2006, approximately 645 million people were experiencing multidimensional poverty. This number decreased to about 370 million in 2015/2016 and further declined to about 230 million in 2019/2021. These figures illustrate a substantial positive change, reflecting the success of poverty alleviation efforts in the country during this period.

As per the latest poverty report from the government think tank NITI Ayog, the count of states with a population of less than 10 percent living in multidimensional poverty has doubled during the period between 2016 and 2021. Over a span of 5 years, India’s poverty has decreased by 10%.

India has made remarkable progress in reducing multidimensional poverty, witnessing a significant decline of 9.89 percentage points. The number of multidimensionally poor individuals in the country decreased from 24.85% in 2015-16 to 14.96% in 2019-21.

In 2015-16, approximately one in four Indians (24.85 percent) met the criteria for multidimensional poverty. However, by 2019-21, this percentage significantly decreased to 14.96 percent, which translates to approximately one in seven individuals living in multidimensional poverty. This represents a substantial improvement in poverty reduction over the specified period.

Indeed, there has been significant progress in poverty reduction in Bihar and other states between 2015-16 and 2019-21. In 2015-16, more than 51.89 percent of Bihar’s population lived in multidimensional poverty. However, by 2019-21, this figure had decreased to 33.76 percent. This means that while one out of every two persons in Bihar was living in multidimensional poverty in 2015-16, the number has now improved to one in three individuals.

Similarly, Jharkhand managed to reduce the percentage of people living under multidimensional poverty from 42 per cent in 2015-16 to 28.82 per cent in 2019-21. Uttar Pradesh saw a decline from 37.68 per cent to 22.93 per cent, and in Madhya Pradesh, multidimensional poverty dropped from 36.57 per cent to 20.63 per cent. These improvements signify substantial progress in poverty alleviation efforts in these states during the specified period.

India is one of the world’s fastest growing major economy. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF), at the growth rate of 11.5%, India is going to be the fastest growing economy in 2023. The world’s only country to register a double-digit growth in 2023.

Related Government Initiatives: National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM),

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (MNREGA), Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), Public Distribution System (PDS), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (Saubhagya), Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY).

men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions.