Surging South

Alarm bells are ringing for the Hindi heartland. UP and Bihar face serious questions before they can be relevant on the national stage

LEADING THE WAY: By most yardsticks, the South is way ahead

For the last month, I’ve been travelling across much of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. For somebody who often spent vacations in obscure towns in Uttar Pradesh where the suitability of a town is often measured by comparing crime statistics, the southern part of this country is a revelation. Better roads, decent public transport, a semblance of order, hardly any undercurrents of violence on the street – this is all very far away from the ubiquitous misery and constant state of unrest in the Hindi heartland.

I’ll let the stats do the talking. The four southern states contribute one-third of India’s tax revenues. Contrast this with UP and Bihar who despite accounting for 25% of the population contribute just above 10%. The electrification in Tamil Nadu and Kerala is in the high eighties and nineties. For UP and Bihar, an abysmal 42.8% and 27.7% respectively. Literacy is a no-contest – Kerala 89.9%, Tamil Nadu 74.2%, UP 61.6%, Bihar 54.1%. Any yardstick of social and economic development we take, HIV awareness, media exposure, vaccination coverage, household size, the result is the same – the South is way ahead.

Throughout our Covering Deprivation tour in Vellore district, what struck most of us was the quality of the roads. Even in the remotest parts of the state, as you turn away from the highway, there are paved roads which are easily navigable. While anybody who has travelled way into Eastern UP is sufficiently acquainted with the dustbowls that account for highways. The stats bear us out here too. Tamil Nadu is half the area of UP, yet has 75% of that mammoth state’s highway length.

Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore are a league away from the wretchedness of Lucknow, Bhopal and Patna. Even Chennai’s understated material opulence may perhaps be a sign of greater social equity. The harsh gulf between destitution and obscene wealth that is part of the perennial landscape of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta is less visible.

This is not to say that the South does not have its problems. Of course, it does. Caste, as we saw on our Covering Deprivation tour, remains a major problem as everywhere else in India. But the fact that very different questions are being asked of the polity here is instructive. Voting patterns on the basis of identity are far from extinct, but the elected representatives also know that a minimum level of performance will have to be shown. The question is of better performance, not of occasional, providential government intervention.

The writing is on the wall – the Hindi heartland is in trouble. Even the xenophobic sentiment exploited by Raj Thackeray and his ilk is a pointer to the stark failure of these states in giving their inhabitants a sustainable livelihood. So what does this mean for those two non-performing monoliths – UP and Bihar? They have a monumental challenge ahead of them, if they are to remain relevant to the nation, not just a festering sore. For far too long, they have been trapped in an endless quagmire of violence and destitution. While railing against Raj Thackeray, they must also radically change their political culture and demand performance from those they elect.

This piece appeared in the Covering Deprivation issue of The Word, the paper at the Asian College of Journalism.