With this growing prosperity, however, has come a sense of insecurity to haunt the well to do. This is reflected in the frantic construction of high boundary walls, erection of fences with barbed wires and the round-the-clock deployment of private security guards in the colonies inhabited by them. Their dependence on public security apparatus has, rightly or wrongly, diminished because of a growing feeling that it is neither adequate nor sincere. Yet, the incidents of kidnapping, extortion, theft, robbery and murder dominate the headlines of newspapers and electronic media. Why is this so? Why are the social segments benefiting most feeling unhappy and insecure?
In recent decades, the Indian economy has grown rapidly and the annual average growth rate is somewhere near 9.5 per cent. A claim is being made that, in the near future, it may be in double digits. In the world,
Since the 1990s, Indian market has been wide open for the entry of foreign goods. From food grains, vegetables and fruits to all kinds of manufactured items like safety razors, washing machines, microwave ovens, motorbikes, cars, plastic utensils, and tractors have been entering Indian villages without any restraint. Consequently Indian producers have been adversely affected and they are going out of their age-old vocations. From the weavers of the Banarasi sarees to rural carpenters, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, locksmiths, potters, oilmen, ploughmen, weavers, carders, washer men, barbers, etc. are fast becoming redundant and are forced to migrate to urban areas and to more prosperous States in search of livelihood. Cotton textile and jute textile mills and sugar factories that used to employ a large number of workers have collapsed. The same has been the fate of old engineering works. One can easily discern the devastating impact on both workers and farmers growing cotton, jute and sugarcane by visiting Kanpur, Delhi, Indore, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Solapur, Bihar and eastern UP and areas around them. One may rationalize this, a la Greenspan, by evoking Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of ‘creative destruction’.
Under the new dispensation, jobs are available only to those who have acquired the requisite skills. These skills are not within the reach of people at large because for them proper schooling is indispensable. Thus, by and large, only the young men and women from the well-educated and well off families get into the institutions imparting modern skills in engineering, medical, management and information technology. Consequently, in
Since the slum dwellers, in the course of serving the rich, witness their living standards and the goods and services consumed by them. They see the newer and newer gadgets, imported clothes, liquors, shoes, food, etc. and witness how the elite have been throwing lavish parties and eating, drinking and making merry. This arouses an irresistible envy and urge to acquire the means to enjoy similar life style. On the basis of their earnings, they cannot have them even in next seven lives. Thus, they are so entrapped by the ‘demonstration effect’ of ‘conspicuous consumption’ that they resort to crimes like theft, robbery and murder. Following Thorstein Veblen, Harvey Leibenstein described this phenomenon as ‘bandwagon effect’.
They resort to all kinds of pretexts to acquire information and enter the houses of the rich at opportune moments when they are empty or only old men and women are there. They impersonate postmen, couriers, electricity or water meter readers and indulge in looting and, in case of resistance, murders. They enter into a league with domestic servants or drivers to kidnap children or even adults for ransom. With women going to work during the daytime, the children are entrusted to the care of servants who are quite often won over by the criminals and made accomplice in kidnapping and robbery. Our neo-rich people unlike in the Western world possess washing machines, microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners and other modern gadgets but they quite often do not use them and try to imitate the rajas and maharajas of the bygone days. This leads to their growing dependence on the servants who are available cheap in plenty, thanks to the increasing incidence of unemployment and poverty.
Among the neo-rich there is a substantial proportion of those who have accumulated wealth and derived incomes from various kinds of criminal and illegal activities. These people try to show off their prosperity by indulging in lavish living, wearing expensive dresses, shoes and ornaments, driving luxury cars, drinking imported liquors, and carrying the latest models of mobile phones. Their indulgence in ‘snob effect,’ naturally leads to ‘bandwagon effect,’ encouraging criminal activities to acquire money.
Ill-treatment meted out to domestic servants prevents most of them from having any attachment or loyalty to their masters. Besides, they are not granted any leave, not to speak of leave with pay, and provided medical facilities. Their hours of work have seldom any limitation. They have neither any union nor law to protect their interests. Quite often very young boys and girls are employed as domestic help in contravention of the legal stipulations but seldom any effective action is taken by law enforcing agencies.
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