1st year faculty of commerce English section
The identity crisis in India:

The breakup of Pakistan in 1971 can be explained in pt. by a failure of understanding on the part of the West Pakistani leadership of Pakistan, a seeming inability to recognize what the meaning of Pakistan was for Bengalis , and thus the cause of the demand for Bengali as a state language equal to Urdu . Exploration of the language issue in the period before and after dependence helps to illuminate the divergence of belief about the form of the new state and the meaning of parity in representation between east and west wings of the country. The final tragedy of the attempted crushing of the movement for an autonomous Bangladesh is also in part an outcome of this pattern of belief, in particular the belief about the role of Hindus in the expression of Bengali identity.

• The legitimacy crisis in India:

In no region of the world have so many political entities intermingled with so many religious traditions for so long as in India. The early Hindu experience established a legitimizing link between religion and the state. Later, non-Hindu faiths adopted similar legitimizing practices. British colonialism displaced local religions as political legitimizers of the state and replaced them with Anglicized Christianity. Indian religions then became legitimizers of anticolonial freedom movements. After independence and partition of the subcontinent in 1947, India had a predominantly Hindu population, but the new state was created as a secular entity. Although secularism has been endangered and pressured in the past four decades, it remains largely intact at the national level; however, there are inconsistencies in its application and threats to its integrity at the regional and state level. Religion has, however, ceased to be the key legitimizing instrument of the state; democratic voting has replaced it. Yet, religious issues remain a vital part of Indian politics. The future appears optimistic for the continuity of the secular state, although severe problems could erode the concept.

• The penetration crisis in India:

The U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Bremer's My Year in Iraq, and Xenophon's Education of Cyrus all consider problems of establishing a state. Bremer sees constitutions as fundamental, and the Field Manual emphasizes local security operations and effective governance to establish legitimacy. But Xenophon shows how states are founded by leaders with reputations for reliably rewarding supporters. Agency incentive problems in government make patronage an essential aspect of state-building, and political leaders become fundamentally constrained by their reputations. Democratic competition requires many leaders to develop independent reputations for exercising power and patronage responsibly, which can be encouraged by political decentralization.

• The participation crisis in India:

The main objective of this article is to examine the willingness to pay for a viable rural health insurance scheme through community participation in India, and the policy concerns it engenders. The willingness to pay for a rural health insurance scheme through community participation is estimated through a contingent valuation approach (logit model), by using the rural household survey on health from Karnataka State in India. The results show that insurance/saving schemes are popular in rural areas. In fact, people have relatively good knowledge of insurance schemes (especially life insurance) rather than saving schemes. Most of the people stated they are willing to join and pay for the proposed rural health insurance scheme. However, the probability of willingness to join was found to be greater than the probability of willingness to pay. Indeed, socio-economic factors and physical accessibility to quality health services appeared to be significant determinants of willingness to join and pay for such a scheme. The main justification for the willingness to pay for a proposed rural health insurance scheme are attributed from household survey results: (a) the existing government health care provider's services is not quality oriented; (b) is not easily accessible; and, (c) is not cost effective.

The discussion suggests that policy makers in India should take serious note of the growing influence of the private sector and people's willingness to pay for organizing a rural health insurance scheme to provide quality and efficient health care in India. Policy interventions in health should not ignore private sector existence and people's willingness to pay for such a scheme and these two factors should be explicitly involved in the health management process. It is also argued that regulatory and supportive policy interventions are inevitable to promote this sector's viable and appropriate development in organizing a health insurance scheme. © 1998 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

• The distribution crisis in India:

This article uses a limited general equilibrium model to investigate the growth and equity effects of a variety of economic and technical changes and selected agricultural policies in India. It explores how changes in food prices, rural wages, and farm profits associated with the Green Revolution period affected income distribution between net buyers and sellers of food. The model shows that income gains from the Green Revolution initially accrued to the wealthier rural groups but that after 1972–73 they were transferred to urban consumers and that by 1980–81 the per capita incomes of poor and wealthier rural groups alike were barely above their respective 1960–61 levels. The model is also used in counterfactual analysis of the impact of changes in technological, demographic, investment, taxation, and income redistribution variables. Its findings indicate the importance of trade policies for the nature of the equity outcomes from agricultural growth and suggest that a reduction in population growth and an increase in nonagricultural employment and income are required to convert agricultural growth into reduced rural poverty.