G RAM G, Viksit Bharat!

Developed India remains a chimera without steps to improve quality of life

Alok Tiwari

Even with Modi government’s penchant for far out and twisted acronyms, the VB-G RAM G (Viksit Bharat- Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission-Gramin) takes the cake. To think someone taxed their brains this much just to delete Mahatma Gandhi’s name from a scheme defies belief. To be fair, it does more than that. It also reduces, if not removes, central government’s responsibility towards the scheme and adds to burden of the states. And ah! It also adds the name of Ram, even if in a creepy way, and thus a touch of Hindutva. It does manage to sound like Jai Ramji. That is pure genius. Then it does not matter if, to do this, some Macaulayputra had to insert as many as four English (and horror of horrors, one Urdu) words in the name. It sure must have been a bitter pill for a government that is loath to even call the country India, preferring Bharat instead in all official communications.

There is also something deeply ironic and defeatist about making a scheme meant to provide barely four months’ work to the poorest a vehicle to race towards the Viksit Bharat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself had mocked the scheme once as a monument of Congress’s failure. It is a remarkable show of pragmatism on his part, the haters would call it eating crow, if he now thinks it is useful in making India a developed country. It is another matter that a truly developed country will not have poor in such numbers that a chunk of its federal and state budgets is given over to supporting them. So, congratulations are in order for this momentous achievement.

Meanwhile, it is entirely a happy coincidence that this change of name has taken our mind off some of the more pressing concerns that might have lowered our ratings on happiness index. The air quality, for instance. Delhi’s air quality index may be touching 1,000. As the national capital, it truly leads the way. But this is no longer just a Delhi problem. Air quality is now seriously bad in practically every city and every town. A Lancet study says that this may be contributing to about 15 to 20 lakh premature deaths across the country annually.

It is a pity that bad air does not discriminate by religion while making people ill and killing them. We went to war with Pakistan when terrorists from there did so. I wonder if having clean air is one of the goals of our government. Most developed nations appear to have achieved it. Hence, it must not be particularly difficult to do. Somehow our government does not seem to have a clue. This problem has continued to worsen over the years. For nearly a year now, Delhi now has double-engined government. All it could think of doing about air pollution in Delhi in this period was to ban tandoors and blame the AAP government. Which seems just about right.

Less talked about but equally severe is the water emergency. More than half of the country’s over 600 major rivers, including the holiest ones like Ganga and Yamuna, are considered contaminated. Major sources of pollution are untreated sewage from cities, industrial effluents, and pesticides from farms. Surely, some progress should have been made to cleanse them. We have had missions for several of them with thousands of crores allocated and spent. Yet, real outcomes remain elusive. Building sewage treatment plants and mandating effluent treatment for all industries is not beyond our competence. If we can build dozens of flyovers and expensive but little used metro systems in even tier 2 cities, we should be having resources to have them clean their wastewater.

Then there are the ramshackle education and healthcare systems. People in villages will be much more grateful if instead of 125 days of employment, which they never see, they could have the local primary health centre functional and a couple of competent teachers in the school. Doing those two things alone will prevent a major haemorrhaging of wealth from village folks. A chunk of their budget is spent on just providing education to kids and running to cities for even common illnesses. Would the government consider a mission to fix these? People would be willing to accept any convoluted acronym with names of any number of deities incorporated in it if it serves the purpose.

Then there are intangibles yet significant features of most developed countries. These are respect for individual rights, a rule of law, strong institutions that do not change colours with change in the government. Where does India stand on all these and what direction it is going? Our jails are full of undertrials who languish for months, sometimes years, before their cases come up for trials. People on wrong side of political spectrum are denied trial and bail while those on the right side get treated with kid gloves even when their guilt is proven. Government agencies and even constitutional institutions are seen bending to political will. Bharat cannot be truly viksit with such baggage.

Finally, there is the question of resources. There is no universal definition of developed countries but by most yardsticks they are the ones with a per capita national income of around US $12,000 to 13,000. We are right now around $2500. It will take a sustained and real annual double-digit growth over next two decades if we are to get there by 2047. Do we have industrial, investment, and taxation policies in place to attain that? Right now, even with a suspect measurement system, we are having trouble reaching 8%.

It is indeed the government prerogative to name a scheme after the Mahatma or anyone else. But Viksit Bharat needs more than just clever acronyms. Without real work, we might be saying Jai Ramji to the goal more as farewell than greeting.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Dec 25, 2025