Rs 12,000 per acre a year, so imagine what a marginal farmer in a poorer state like Bihar or Orissa makes.

For India to become a rich country, we need to begin by accepting that marginal and small farms cannot do more than keep people in poverty. Only then will we start making policies that work. Instead of spending thousands and thousands of crores every year on schemes that work marginally at best, what we need to do is invest that money on skills training programmes, better schools and better public services in general. In rural parts, it is not just schools that exist mostly on paper, but hospitals, public transport, electricity, drinking water and almost everything else.

There is another problem. Those of our politicians who are of leftist bent have a vested interest in keeping people poor and illiterate, because they believe they constitute a vote bank that can be fooled most of the time. This is the fundamental principle of the feudal socialism that has been our ideology since Independence. It has worked so far, but cannot any more because the contrasts are ugly and unacceptable. No matter how many billionaires we add to the billionaire lists of the world, India will continue to be a poor country until we find a way to make the average, rural Indian escape dreadful poverty. The ways we have found so far have not worked and we must begin by accepting this.