Contemporary India

5

Human Development: Health and Education

Neera Chandhoke

INTRODUCTION

What is the relationship between democracy and the well-being of citizens? There are two sorts of answers that we can offer in response to this question. First, people are not themselves responsible for poverty, illiteracy, or ill health that afflicts them. The causes of ill-being lie outside the control of the victims. For example, due to the distorted pattern of resource distribution, some people have more land, some have no land, and some have command over their incomes such as wages or rents, while others have nothing except their labour power. If the social distribution of resources is responsible for the ill-being of citizens, then society, or more precisely, the democratic ...