A second major failure is the extent of poverty in Andipatti. Poverty extends beyond the Arunthathiyar and other dalits to the ‘most backward’ castes too. While the poorest in Andipatti do not seem as destitute as their counterparts in Amethi — because wage rates for men are nearly double that of Amethi — the proportion of poor people appears to be no lower. The poverty is readily apparent. Many children and adults are emaciated. Many huts are hovels. Large areas of land have no crops growing. And in interviews, person after person pointed to massive fraud in apportioning ‘Below Poverty Line’ cards.

Not least among Andipatti’s failures is the high rate of female foeticide and infanticide. The female to male ratio among children and teenagers in Andipatti is the lowest of Theni’s blocks — and Theni itself is among the worst-performing districts in Tamil Nadu. The gender inequity epitomised by the skewed sex ratio is a key factor behind the high HIV rates, with large numbers of disadvantaged women taking to sex work to provide for themselves and their children. It is a sharp irony that Jayalalithaa, one of India’s most powerful women, represents a constituency where gender discrimination remains entrenched.

The persistence of poverty and other human development failures in these two enormously privileged constituencies — Amethi and Andipatti — should worry us greatly.

First, because conditions for the poor in the vast remainder of rural India that has never seen such an influx of money and attention as these two favoured areas are doubtless just as bad or even worse. And second, because the primary lesson taught by these VVIP areas is that money by itself is not a cure-all for rural India’s developmental problems. This lesson is at odds with the neo-liberal theory — dominating the PMO, finance ministry, Planning Commission, and Congress leadership for many years now — that rapid economic growth, once channeled into larger budgets for the social sectors, will bring an end to poverty and other deprivations. The theory is persuasive in abstract terms, but not when applied to rural India’s realities.

... contd.