By Angela Rangad
Numbers and phrases that economists and planners throw at us can be confusing. Per Capita Income, Rate of Growth, Unemployment Rate, Net State Domestic Product. But I know that these numbers and phrases have real lives. Food on the table, rent paid, hospital bills taken care of, school fees cleared. So I try to understand in my own way the jargon of Economy. I have always thought that economy needs to be understood in terms of how we as human beings labour to earn our means of survival. Economics needs to answer questions of everyday life. And the answers we seek have to have an ideological perspective so that we can decide on economic policies. As in what would that policy mean? Will it mean just basic food and shelter or will it mean an all round development of our family, community and humanity?
So let me begin by three economic questions that I always ask. Do we have enough to live? Is there enough income to pay for that and how is that income distributed? We can take out as many rallies, wring as many hands, publish as many headlines, but if we don’t situate our angst in these fundamental questions of economic reality, Meghalaya shall see no change.
Seven years ago we were campaigning for an increase in the official minimum wages. We asked a simple question: how much money does a family of four need to survive and we did a survey. We found that a family needed a minimum of Rs. 15,205 rupees per month to barely survive. Obviously we know that the cost of living has gone up in these seven years, things are more expensive. My economist friends tell me that one would need approximately 21,895 rupees now. So where is this income going to come from? As a state do we produce enough to provide for our people? Are there enough well paying jobs?
For instance, Meghalaya is one of the poorest states in India if we compare it vis-a-vis per capita income or the income every resident of Meghalaya would have every year if all the income produced in the state is divided equally amongst them. In 2020-21, the per capita income of Meghalaya was approximately Rs. 80,000 per year. Compared to similar sized states and with similar geographical conditions like Sikkim, Mizoram and Tripura we can clearly see we are poorer. Our state does not have enough income to go around. Rs 82,182 means that every family with two working adults has a notional monthly earning of 13967 rupees or daily income of 456 rupees.
Even if overall income is not good enough, if the cost of living and inflation was low and the distribution of income more equal, life could be a bit more bearable. But with our per capita income being so low, even with growth in per capita income in 2020, a family can only make approximately Rs. 14000/month if the distribution of income is absolutely equal. But we know that is not the case.
We have a small minority of Meghalayans who can afford to buy Lamborghinis, SUVs, erect gleaming glass fronted buildings, have swimming pools, so we know that 82000 rupees is not equally distributed amongst the people. That means that out of 82000, for the larger masses there is less to go around. Just ask working people around about the number of people in the family who have to work to sustain themselves and how long their working hours are, and the story of family poverty would strike you hard. And available data corroborates these realities. If we look at Multidimensional Poverty Index for the states we find that one third of our population (32.8%) is poor and experiences deprivation. So extreme inequality is at the very heart of the economic life of Meghalaya.
But we can reduce our poverty, if our economy was growing fast enough. But as RBI said that our Rate of Growth is much below the national average, rather one of the lowest in the country. That means while our population is growing, the wealth in the state is not growing fast enough.
In my campaigns, I have heard people talk about how their lives are becoming more and more difficult. Meghalaya with its hi-level corruption of political-bureucratic class that corners most of the developmental pie and a society where people can’t run their livelihood and small businesses and agriculture in peace means that our economy rather than growing is actually slowing down. That is why more young people are leaving the state for work, more children are getting stunted, more young people are dropping out of education, and more criminal activities like drug peddling is eating our everyday life.
But our MLAs and prospective MLAs are excitedly distributing one time doles rather than working and thinking of policies that shall increase our growth rate and increase per capita income in a way that creates more employment and sustainable amenities and infrastructure for all so that citizens don’t have to be desperate for the doles from the politicians. Maybe thats why politicians do not think of economic policies because they want working people to be their slaves. If we don’t want to live our lives precariously we need to make economy work for the people. We need to get angry at the numbers.
Economy is finally how we live.