BY Glenn C Kharkongor
In the last fortnight, two definitive studies on developmental and social indices have been published. Both studies covered a national spectrum and provided detailed indices, state by state. One is the 15th annual survey called “State of the States”, conducted by India’s most widely circulated weekly, India Today.
This survey, conducted by Nielsen, a global information, data and measurement company, covered the parameters of education, entrepreneurship, environment and cleanliness, inclusive development, infrastructure, tourism, agriculture, governance, economy and health. The 30 states were divided into large and small categories. In the 10 small states, Meghalya stands last in the overall rankings. Our state is last in tourism and infrastructure, ninth in law and order and education
The other study was published in Lancet, a prestigious medical journal. Entitled, “Nations within a nation: variations… across the states of India 1990–2016, in the Global Disease Study”. The study was based on cumulative data compiled by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Public Health Foundation of India. They noted that health indices in the states of India, many as large as countries elsewhere on the globe, varied markedly from state to state.
So the Indian states were clumped into four categories. The top group included Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Tamilnadu, Goa and Kerala. Some of the health standards in these states approach those in developed countries. The two intermediary groups have health indices comparable to other middle income countries. Group 1, the lowest ranked, includes Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, Rajasthan, Meghalaya, Assam, Chhattisgarh, MP and Odisha, have health indices similar to the most backward countries on the planet. So it’s now official. Meghalaya sits among the bimaru states of India, alongside many in the Hindi-Hindutva heartland.
In the low health indices, women and children are the main sufferers. Reflecting the highest fertility rate in the country, caused by low contraceptive use, the proportion of children aged 0-6 years is the highest in the country (2011 Census). In large families that are poor, the children tend to be malnourished. Our state has the highest prevalence of stunting and vitamin A deficiency.For certain cancer sites, the highest rates occur in Meghalaya, such as laryngeal and esophageal cancer for both men and women.
Because of complex social trends, single-mother headed households are on the rise. Meghalaya has the highest percentage of abandoned women, deserted mostly in the age range of 25-40. Kerala has more woman headed households, but this is accounted for by male work migration. The children of single mothers in our state are less healthy and more prone to dropping out of school.
In education our state has many dubious distinctions. Among them are the lowest ability of children in the Northeast region, highest dropout rate in the country, and lowest pass percentage in the school board examinations. Meghalaya recorded the highest decadal population growth percentage among all states in India between Census 2001 and Census 2011. Our population pyramid with a preponderance of children and youth dictates certain strategic approaches to health and education.
Failure of governance
Bibek Debroy, an eminent economist, member of the Economic Advisory Council and NitiAayog, says that the road to development starts with good governance. The India Today Survey highlights some strengths of successful states. Most importantly is a good policy regime. Other good indices have surfaced such as safety of women (Puducherry), decentralisation and devolution of powers and functions (Kerala), separate toilets for girl students in 100% of schools (Telangana). Meghalaya figures nowhere in lists of best practices. In fact, Meghalaya went backwards and instiutionalised centralization of powers through the Meghalaya Basin Development Authority.
At a seminar last week we heard from the Mission Director, State Resource Centre for Women, Government of Meghalaya that the number of rapes, 93 in 2015, has strikingly risen to more than four hundred so far in the incomplete year of 2017. She also reported that among rapes in Meghalaya, in 95.5% of the cases, the rapist is known to the victim.
The Church: mute bystander
In the overall ranking of small states in the India Today Survey, the three Christian majority states are ranked 6, 7, and 10, the intervening states being Manipur and Tripura. Surely this is a sad commentary on the state of the Christian community, so Westernised in their mindset, but unable to forge ahead developmentally like the firang societies we admire so unabashedly. But the greater failure is the neglect of the poor, widows, orphans, the socially disadvantaged groups that our Bible exhorts us to care for.
Between the opulence of the city churches and the eloquence of the preachers, the poor and needy are shoved aside. A few individual pastors do yeoman work for the marginalized but very little is done by the churches in an organized way. One hears the oft-repeated phrase that the educational institutions serve the community, but many of the prestigious schools and colleges cater mostly to the elite. The Catholic hospitals are run well, other churches are adept at institutional mismanagement.
However hotly one may argue, there is no escaping the fact that in Christian states, the majority of people, themselves Christian, are poor, unhealthy and inadequately educated. The throngs of fashionably dressed churchgoers that crowd the streets on Sundays with Bibles and hymnals in hand are not the true face of the Christian community. A prominent pastor once told me that many Christians in the rural areas are ashamed to go to church because they don’t have good clothes or cannot afford the bus or sumo fare.
It’s not just the apathy of the Church, it’s worse than that. Patriarchal policies and practices in the Church have a direct impact on women’s health. The high fertility rate, reluctance to use contraception stem from the teaching “that God has given”. The inability of women to negotiate safe and protected sex, is because their disadvantaged position in relationships is reinforced by teachings like, “wives should submit themselves to their husbands”. These are important factors that contribute to the extraordinarily high maternal mortality rate in the state.
So while in the end we must conclude that the continuing backwardness of our state is a collective failure, those of us who are fortunate to be better off in terms of education and means, must bear a larger share than the more marginalised. But ultimately, culpability lies at the door of government. This government is not solely to blame, but it is surely the latest in a long line of ineffectual governments of unconscionable leaders, carrying forward for almost half a century, a deathly neglect of minimum forms of governance such as policy making. And finally to quote Deuteronomy 5:9 for the sake of our church leaders, the sins of the past are now being visited upon the young innocents unto the third and fourth generation.
(The author is from Martin Luther Christian University)