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Special Article

26 April 2010

Requiem for a report
Bengal's Quiet Burial Of Human Development Data

Debraj Bhattacharya
LET us all observe a minute's silence. The West Bengal Human Development Report has met with a quiet death under mysterious circumstances. May its soul rest in peace.
Why mourn the demise of a report? The reason is that the state Human Development Report is the only source of finding out in an objective manner how the common people of West Bengal are living their lives and whether or not they are getting the minimum requirement of a dignified life. Globally, every year, the United Nations brings out the Human Development Report, which explains how each country is doing in terms of the Human Development Indices. However, it is not possible to understand from the global report how a particular state in India is performing. Hence the significance of the state level Human Development Report.
Yet this rather untimely death of the report is definitely somewhat of a puzzle and one that calls for an investigation. In 2004, when the first West Bengal Human Development Report was published as the outcome of a joint project of the UNDP, the Planning Commission and the Government of West Bengal, the document was profusely praised. It even won an award from the UN. It was a reasonably balanced account of the present state of West Bengal's human development. Even today the report is one of the best sources of knowing how the common man in West Bengal was faring at the turn of the century.
Somewhat biased
IT was divided into chapters on land reform, people's participation through the panchayati raj, the material conditions of the people, employment trends, health and nutrition, education, human security, issues related to the environment and problems of specific regions. It presented a comprehensive picture of the condition of the citizens of the state. The narrative chapters were backed by an impressive set of tables and maps which gave a vivid statistical picture. The common reader had no difficulty in comprehending the data.
My own opinion on the report is that it was somewhat biased in favour of the Left Front government but was nonetheless an outstanding achievement. Each of the districts was ranked in terms of indices on health, income and education as well as in terms of a composite Human Development Index. Kolkata predictably stood first, while Purulia was mentioned in the last rung.
What the report brought out for the first time in terms of scientific data was that development in West Bengal has been dangerously uneven with the bulk of the progress restricted to the districts surrounding Kolkata. The chapter on land reform, while lauding the achievements of the state, demonstrates that recording of bargadars indicated a dramatic upswing in the immediate aftermath of the Left Front's coming to power ~ between 1978 and 1981.  Thereafter, it declined no less dramatically, and there was once again a very sharp variation in terms of the districts. In other words, land reform was not uniformly impressive in all the districts.
The chapter on panchayati raj lauded the experience of decentralisation in the state and showed that the lower castes had come to power in the local governments. In terms of income, the report carries a chapter on material conditions. West Bengal was ranked ninth in India although the state has done impressively in terms of reduction of poverty. However, it noted that average consumption was still quite low and there were "pockets of particular concern and deprivation." While the state has recorded  impressive growth in rural unemployment, the report noted, there was a disconcerting increase in educated unemployment. Factory employment has been stagnant since the 1980s. No wonder there are so many hawkers around.
No answer
After being complimented for bringing out the report, one would have expected the publication of the West Bengal Human Development Report to be a regular event like the publication of the global report. This would have had a strong impact on policy, development debates and perhaps even in political discourse. Imagine a Human Development Report coming out in 2010 and the debates in the next Assembly elections revolving around it. In a state where political debates are more often than not characterized by shrill rhetoric rather than objective analysis of facts, the HDR could have ushered in a paradigm shift. If the indicators had improved, the Left Front could have quoted the figures as its achievement, and effectively trashed the Opposition criticism  once and for all. On the other hand, if the data showed a negative turn, the Opposition could have used it to its advantage. In other words, the debates could have taken place on the basis of scientifically accepted data rather than a loud display of demagogic skills.
What happened after 2004 is a story of faulty planning at the state as well as at the national level. The UNDP, the Planning Commission and the state governments decided to scrap the state-wise reports and go in for district-wise HDRs. The task proved to be too ambitious and didn't yield the expected results. In West Bengal, the HDRs for only three districts are now available. They are of no use if one were to ascertain whether or not the state has improved in terms of Human Development Indices since 2004. Was the decision to shift from state HDR to district HDR a result of poor planning or was it a shrewd move to ensure that the true picture remains hidden from the public? The answer shall forever lie hidden in the darkness of the corridors of power.
The writer is with the Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

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Palash Biswas
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