Is India About To Endanger Its Demographic Dividend..?
Change is never easy as we all know and one can delay it but may not be able to avoid the same. There is a saying that says that a stitch in time saves nine....but do we really follow it or even realise it's imported? Lack of proactive change has an uncanny way of catching up when you least expect it or when you are completely unprepared. Something like that is unfolding in India in the wake of an unprecedented lockdown which the country continues to face since the past month and a half. If one has seen the plight of the migrant labour unfolding on the streets every day, with no jobs, no place to stay, no food, no transportation and virtually no support from both the state as well as central government, then one knows that our inactions of the past have caught up. Thousands of people may lay down their lives not because of the virus but because of lack of food, starvation, money and our apathy, our inability to see how this debilitating lockdown will impact this section of our population. There is that defence however that nobody could have foreseen such an event and hence its nature and God's wrath. Is that really true or have we let down our key asset due to our lack of action over the years??
The answer, unfortunately, lies with a bit of both - yes there was virtually no inkling that the whole world will shut down like this but we too never really created conditions to safeguard our most significant asset which allowed us to shine among the comity of nations with almost three decades of high growth. India wore with pride its badge of a young, educated as well as a substantial population which not only gave it the edge on earning capacity but also a huge consumer market. Somewhere in that euphoria, we forgot that large and young populations need jobs on a continuous basis as well as huge growth and the absence of that can turn into a demographic disaster. We can now see a trailer of what could happen then!
Can we then reimagine some of those actions which we should have taken and will they help to stop this tide? We now have time and though not the best of time to think of remedies, we do need to think of action once we get out of the lockdown. I can think of three areas which are imperative for India to think on and they are as follows:
India has been largely dominated by agriculture and a substantial part of the population is still in the villages. Over the years, landholdings have gone down, crop policy, irrigation, financing infrastructure has let down the farmer leading to continuous distress. Lack of non-farm jobs have led to massive migrant population travelling to the cities for jobs as well as livelihoods. While it was a solution for a short period, such solutions are not on what one can build a long term future on. One needs to bring in policy as well as economic changes such that agriculture is remunerative and rural India plays its role on the manufacturing as well as the service jobs. There needs to the lesser incentive for people travelling for jobs and livelihoods to faraway cities though that process may not stop.
Labour legislation and rules are the other very important reform that our country needs to initiate. We have always shied away from it due to it being the political hot potato. We have grown out of the Zamindari system though still do have a stringent set of rules which sometimes hinder productivity. Any discussion on workers rights also is hindered by lack of a safety net for them. Clearly Provident Fund, Pension, Gratuity as they presently exist today for formal labour and nothing for the informal sector are not enough or no protection. Therefore, an enhanced safety net designed as per world standards but adjusted for Indian sensibilities is a must for the labour force of the future. Otherwise, any discussion on the subject without the security of jobs will never succeed. Some of the European countries suffer because they have too much of the same and hence are not competitive. We need to have a balance. It's a reform whose time has come as we cannot be a high growth nation without poor and unfair labour practices!
Lastly, we need a relook at our education system. We have done an excellent job on the education system and its extent but as per the needs of India of the '60s and '70s. We need the India of tomorrow. Our investment in education needs to go up manifold not only in providing the basics but also skills as well as investment in research as well as technology. The young workforce that we have cannot be skilled with competencies of the past but rather of the future.
Some of the above-mentioned actions need to be the cornerstone for our demography for the future. Current lockdown is a grim reminder and perhaps a timely one that we need to invest and change to make our demographics a dividend and not a ...Disaster! It is time for a change...
