It is unfortunate but true that we have to acknowledge the struggle of the global majority for the basic needs meant for human survival. Poverty, social backwardness and huge gaps across social groups in terms of access to food, shelter, health and education have always existed and are here to stay. Under such circumstances what governments and Good Samaritans have always believed in is philanthropy, but the fact is we have to think beyond philanthropy and think of investing in less privileged communities and social groups.
We need to focus about investing in the backward communities and underprivileged sections of the society, which shall have a cumulative effect over the economy and shall espouse the cause of development and ensure social justice through bringing social equilibrium at least as regards socio-economic development of backward classes and also of backward regions, which normally witness abysmally low business activities and employment. It is a fact that lack of business activity brings in underdevelopment and which in turn results in migration from rural to urban areas owing to lack of employment opportunities.
Philanthropy or charity cannot succeed to uplift communities till we fail to see and respect the perspective of the underprivileged with utmost sincerity and empathy.
They no more want to receive what is being offered as charity, as no one wants to crawl or walk by help of a walker, two legs with strength are that any human aspires to have, and for removing the financial handicap of the underprivileged we have to offer them the two legs of strength; firstly, opportunity (which includes financial help and conducive atmosphere) and, secondly, impart necessary skill and motivation to start an enterprise big or small.
Entrepreneurship is the creative elixir that runs the economy and makes it alive. It is undisputedly the most effective instrument to reduce the socio-economic gap, empower the backward and underprivileged communities and enhance economic mobility and wealth creation.
However, the most efficient of the members of the backward and underprivileged communities never get a scope to start a venture or even if they somehow manage to start one, it languishes owing to lack of resources, this is mostly true for members of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities, women and rural entrepreneurs.
A majority of venture funding globally goes to the more connected and privileged and, that too, mostly men. Women, minorities and underprivileged are mostly in disadvantageous condition while seeking angel investment, bank loans or governmental aid.
The fact remains that people favour those who are similar to them or of equal socio-economic background. The biases are all pervading and have penetrated every institution which blurs the vision and the decision-making ability of those who hold the resources and the financial gates never actually gets opened to the backward communities. So, it is necessary to fight these biases and democratise finance or make fund flow accessible to the ‘deserving but needy’ with urgency.
It is also important to that the resourceful should be impressed upon about the need to invest locally by identifying the able and potential candidates from the backward and less privileged communities.
Social justice and economic freedom are intimately intertwined, and it is impossible to achieve the former without effectively attaining the later. It is a fact that, here in India we have poorly performed on multiple social indicators and it can be directly attributed to corruption, nepotism and infirm democratisation of resources and opportunities. Therefore, the government schemes like Aayushman Bharat, Jan Dhan and other direct benefit schemes are most welcome. As direct schemes help quite a lot in stopping the major chunk of the resources meant for the target groups being swindled by the middlemen.
It is essential that the government both at State and Centre to efficiently identify the citizens along with information about there financial status being duly recorded for meaningful and fair distribution of resources, grants and other benefits meant for the target groups and the underprivileged members of the society, which shall also be quite helpful in reaching out to support the poorest of the poor during pandemic like Covid-19. Hence, gathering of personal information with necessary assurance of protection of privacy of the citizens should be welcomed.
At the end of the day, it is ultimately important to motivate the society and institutions both government and private to invest in the ‘deserving but needy’, which shall go a long way in providing fuel for the realisation of the aspirations of a new India and world as well, which philanthropy alone cannot achieve except fulfilling the immediate needs and not eradicating the root of the trouble.
(The writer is a lawyer and a public policy expert and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Law and Media Studies at School of Mass Communication, KIIT University. He can be reached at sjyotiranjan3@gmail.com)