India vs Bharat: two notions, not two nations

The question comes up whenever the gap between urban and rural development is discussed. It is not a tale of two nations at war, as the phrase implies. It is the tale of two notions that complete each other.

PPN believes the two can survive and thrive only when they support each other. India collapses without Bharat's support. Bharat withers without India's.

The case as it stands

India is an urban entity, a 300-million strong middle class with real purchasing power, mostly in cities and larger towns. Bharat is the seventy percent plus who live in villages, with agriculture as their livelihood.

India's popular image is a country on the fast track of industrialisation. The fact is that its economy is agriculture-based: nearly seventy percent of a billion plus people depend on farming and allied work. A good monsoon lifts demand for every consumer item. The failure of a single monsoon triggers inflation, and in drought it is farmers' suicides that reach the headlines.

The question

Land acquisition in rural areas has sharpened it. Development at what cost? Is India encroaching upon Bharat, or is India sharing its wealth with Bharat?

That is what we would like to know from you.