India
is a rich country with too many poor people. It is primarily because the wealth is
concentrated in the hands of a few individuals.
According to the World Inequality Report 2018, India is the second most
unequal region in the world. The Middle
East takes the cake with the top 10% of the population owning 61% of the
national income. 10% of the super-rich
Indians hold 55% of the country’s wealth.
I
was sitting in a friend’s car yesterday when he refuelled the car with petrol
at the rate of ₹76 per litre. I wondered
aloud why people didn’t protest against such blatant exploitation as whimsical
pricing of petrol and diesel in the country.
I belong to a state whose recent BJP nominee to the Rajya Sabha, Alphons
Kannanthanam, told the highly literate Malayalis that the income from the
mounting petrol prices is being used to construct toilets in North India. Malayalis have more than enough toilets in
their homes. In fact, the number of
toilets in Malayali homes is likely to surpass the number of persons in those
homes. Why should the Malayali pay for
the toilets in Bihar or Madhya Pradesh?
“As
long as the common man keeps paying for the luxuries of our leaders, there will
be no protest,” my friend said. “Who
paid for the Kerala Speaker’s glasses which supposedly cost half a lakh of
rupees? Who paid the ₹1.2 lakh bill for
the Ayurvedic treatment of our finance minister? Who will pay the new proposed salaries of our
MPs and others associated with them? Who
pays for the petrol of the vehicles of our politicians?” My friend rattled off a long list of things
for which the aam aadmi in India is
paying, not things but luxuries enjoyed by our politicians most of whom have no
worthwhile qualification of any sort. We
pay for the opulence of our leaders.
“This
is the helplessness of India,” my friend said. “Modi has made India incapable
of questioning. Do you run for money to
buy bread for your children or go questioning the villains who sit in the
legislatures?”
What
a pity! Cry, my beloved country.
Agree with you. Questioning appears to be a crime in this era our beloved country is undergoing. Right now, people like us can cry only as the dictator at the helm has the confidence of fooling a sizable chunk of the people (voters) to win elections after elections taking the advantage of 'First Past the Post' system and then boast of shamelessly - '1.25 billion Indians are standing by me'. Alas ! Presently all right-thinking Indians have no choice but to wait, wait and wait only.
ReplyDeleteRight now we are waiting. I hope the waiting will be over after the 2019 elections. I hope India will vote placing reason above sentiments. I hope people will see through the hollowness of bombastic speeches.
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