Maharashtra — chronicle of a death foretold?

Over the past two decades, Maharashtra’s leaders and caretakers have carefully steered it from being India’s most progressive and forward-looking state to lying on the verge of becoming one of India’s most backward.

This is no mean achievement. Mumbai, as is well known, contributes close to 40% of the nation’s direct taxes. In 2003-2004, Maharashtra’s net state domestic product was second only to Haryana’s and the gross domestic product was 13% of India’s GDP.

But the number of below the poverty line people in Maharashtra stands at around 25%, which is just about at the national average of 26%.

Latest reports show that when it comes to the Human Development Index — infant mortality, infant health, maternal mortality, education and public health — Maharashtra is now falling into the category of states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh, traditionally seen as India’s most backward regions.

Maharashtra is fast losing its industrial edge to long-time rivals like Gujarat and new growth states like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Haryana.

In 1960, Maharashtra and West Bengal were India’s two richest states. Bengal started its downward slide soon after, torn as it was by social unrest, Naxalism and later, the policies of the Left in its long rule.

But Maharashtra’s slide story is one of complacency and highway robbery, not ideological positions or conflicts. The current ruling coalition, in its last three terms, has been exposed for its corruption and self-serving policies.

The focus is on land development, with little thought for inclusive growth or consequences. The government before that scrambled to keep its head above the water after it buckled under the weight of its ill thought-out schemes. The opposition is caught up in a family fight and resorts to petty battles to do with identity politics rather than come up with any worthwhile for the future.

The sickness has spread across almost all sections that are responsible for the state’s well being. The police force, once considered the best in India, is as corrupt, inefficient, and weak as the clichéd idea of the police in India.

The morass into which the police force has sunk was crystallised in the events of November 2008, when the senior officers floundered even as the lower orders struggled to cope with the terrorist attack. Maharashtra’s crime figures are rising by the day.

The state’s bureaucrats, once admired across the nation — like the police force — have also been exposed. Not only by the Adarsh housing scam but also earlier by the floods of July 2005 — no working disaster management system is in place as yet — but more damningly by the latest revelations that almost none of the money in the plan outlay for 2010-2011 has been spent.

The figures are appalling: 3% has been spent on housing, 5% on the environment, 12% on social justice, 17% on urban development and as much as 20% on home! This, very plainly, is work that has not been done.

The writing is on the wall. If Maharashtra is not rescued from its politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and the mafias which control it, the future looks bleak.

It is tragic that such a vibrant, progressive, growth-oriented state should have been allowed to spiral downwards. The nation still looks to Mumbai for answers and so far, it is Mumbai which is driving the state.

But at this rate, even Mumbai will not be able to survive this level of neglect. Governance is the answer but no one seems willing to ask the question.