The Hindu Business Line : From Bharat to India, the HR way

If Bharat is to turn into India, the vast wealth — the pool of scientists and technocrats, rich mineral resources, a strong manufacturing and services sector — must be leveraged.

There seems to be an effort to integrate Bharat with India. The Planning Commission has estimated spending of Rs 14.5 lakh crore for infrastructure development by 2012.

Under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, more than Rs 15,000 crore is to be spent in 2006-07 to bring to school 13.6 million children in the 6-14 age group. There are a host of other development programmes for the ultimate integration.

The President, Mr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, is keen on the PURA (providing urban facilities in rural areas) model; for instance, good roads, broadband connectivity and so on in each of the 592 districts.

Political economists are sure that an FDI-driven GDP growth will banish poverty and backwardness from the country. Reams of reports by international agencies paint a rosy future for India.

There has been positive introspection among the political leaders also. At a Congress plenary session, the party president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, asked her partymen to mend their ways so as to restore public faith in the political process. Senior BJP leader, Mr L. K. Advani, has repeatedly appealed to junior party leaders not to deviate from discipline.

The Real cause of under-development

The greatest responsibility on politicians today is to lift India from the status of underdevelopment, not with populism and slogans but with hard work and by setting personal examples. It is high time the main cause of underdevelopment — the poor human material — was addressed.

Performance in international games

Barring a few exceptions, India's abysmal performance in the sport arena — one bronze in the last Olympic, the inability to qualify for World Cup football and the poor show in hockey — is but a reflection of India's achievements elsewhere.

India has lots of talent but it blossoms in foreign lands or in the right milieu at home. The general shortcoming is the core value of doing things right without compromise, all the time.

The majority of educated Indians invest precious time building comfort zones. Indeed, these comfort zones are the burial grounds of talent.

Rich talent pool

Alongside having the world's third largest pool of scientists and technocrats, rich mineral wealth, a long coastline, vast agricultural lands, perennial rivers, forest wealth, 14 agro-climatic zones, and a strong manufacturing and services sector, India has urban and rural poverty, unemployment and glaring regional disparity.

To escape this vicious impasse, India has to root out the culture of comfort zones and embark on Bharat Nirman (building). It is high time the Congress revived Mahatma Gandhi's Seva Dal, and the BJP and the Left parties gave the right orientation to their cadre.

ll parties must adopt Bharat Nirman as the core ideology, setting aside their ideological rigidities.

A common mission

President Abdul Kalam has asked political parties to converge on development politics with a common mission. Development politics will come through good governance for which party leaders must carefully maintain performance reports from the Sarpanch level to MPs/MLAs.

The living condition of people in the constituencies, the status of development and infrastructure projects, the position of natural resources, the extent of damage to environment and the number of public grievances etc should be the basis for the performance reports.

Election ticket should be given on the basis of good performance reports only. India can build up Bharat if it takes on the hard task of grooming well the vast human potential, the real engine for economic growth.

(The author is a Pune-based freelance writer.)