In a country like India what do we mean by Human Rights(HR)?
HR make sense only when the basic physical needs, like food, shelter, clothing and recreation, are fulfilled.India,with 1.3 billion people, have more than 40 million population living at an income less than Rs.530 a month. Would talking of HR make any sense for them? I suppose before talking about HR, we should talk about empowering the people of our country, so that they are able to enjoy the HR.
Small Scale Industries(SSI) will act as a milestone in empowering Indian population. SSI, being labour intensive industries, will help in employing a large number of unemployed population. Educated youths, good in marketing, have a lot of scope in them because SSI lack on marketing grounds. Local artisans cannot market their products well, and end up getting exploited. We could also assist SSI by helping them monetarily as they involve low cost upto 5 lakh and we can monitor it. Our role lies in coming up with innovative ideas in production and popularisation of the products.
The model of working should be like make the workers owners of the firm be it just 5% share. This would make the worker accountable and responsible for working smartly, and generating profits. It would improve the overall productive efficiency and in turn generate self confidence in the worker.
The second point that I want to make is that good quality, regular jobs should be promoted with proper pension and provident funds. If we cut the salary to half, this would help simply doubling of the number of jobs. But this cannot be done alone. I guess the increasing globalisation is hampering the overall uniform growth of our country. FDIs and FIIs are responsible significantly for the increasing regional imbalance, consumerism and individualistic feeling among people. More than that it is shifting the mind-set of people towards money and wasting many potential brains in software firms. Had these brains been in any other sector the payoffs would have been higher. A proper check should be on these MNCs from salary point of view, so that people have option to join firms based on their interest and not sheer money.
This is my point of view but I would definitely like to have a healthy discussion with the readers if you agree/disagree with me. I am also waiting to learn any refinements in my beliefs so that its effect is multiplied.
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first of all, i do not understand this basic needs>human rights ordering of priorities. Human rights is a completely separate set of ideas and there is no reason why emancipation of people in the Human rights perspective cannot continue in parallel with the alleviation of poverty. moreover, i think HR is almost a basic 'need' for the people just like democracy and food is. case in point is china where despite all this hullabaloo of >10% growth rate, there is a huge percentage of people(mostly in rural areas) who are deprived of their basic requirements. working in factories that do lead to their health deterioration, they do not even have the luxury to speak out and ask for redressal of their grievances, something that the poorest of the indian poor can(except in some remote lawless areas) . The muzzling of the media who cannot report on their plight, the inability of youth to move to urban areas as easily, restraint by government on career choices(youngsters being sent to the villages for rural development, certainly a good step but i am truly pro-choice and wouldn't want anyone else to dictate what i do), swift quelling of dissident voices, what are all these but gross violation of the basic human right to live in equality, the power to be heard. So your claim that basic needs need come first and then the govt should think about getting human rights to the people is, in my frank opinion, flawed. sometimes, human rights need to come first and indeed , to be considered as basic a need as food and water.
ReplyDeletewith regards to your views on SSIs your model is too general to be commented on. Since u are interested in this area as I am, I would like to know more(actual cases, experiences etc). Also if those examples can include how technology has changed a aparticular SSI in sub urban /rural areas, that would be great to hear about.
ReplyDeleteall in all, write more :D
It's nice to know that you too are interested in SSI.
ReplyDeleteI am saying that HR would make more sense if more and more people enjoy it. In Indian context, our prime focus should be on the raising the level of 40% BPL people. When it is hard for them to fulfill their their basic physical needs, how far is it ok to talk about HR for them.
Why are such a majority people deprived of HR ?
1. They are not aware of it.
2. Even when aware, they consider themselves helpless
3. They are subjugated for generations.
Hey... u write good, mentally stimulating stuff... carry on...
ReplyDelete