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| Slum and Skyscrapers in Mumbai: by Alicja Dobrucka |
A
few weeks back, when the World Economic Forum was meeting in Davos, some of the
wealthiest people in the world wrote an open
letter, titled In tax we trust, to their “fellow millionaires
and billionaires.” The letter drew the attention of the affluent people of the world
to the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor and squarely laid the blame
on the prevailing economic system which “until now has been deliberately
designed to make the rich richer.”
The
forthrightness of the letter is admirable. The prevailing economic system which
makes the rich richer is unjust, the letter admits candidly. “This injustice …
has created a colossal lack of trust between the people of the world and the
elites who are the architects of this system. Bridging that divide is going to
take more than billionaire vanity projects or piecemeal philanthropic gestures –
it’s going to take a complete overhaul of a system…”
Let us pay
more tax than the less privileged people. That’s what these rich people are
saying.
Why did they
choose to be so magnanimous. 76% of the world’s total wealth lies in the hands
of just 10% of people. The bottom 50% of people own just 2% of the assets. The
inequality is all too obvious. The injustice is obvious too. To sensible
people.
The Indian billionaires are conspicuously absent
from the signatories to that letter. In India, the chasm between the rich and
the poor became ever more audacious after Modi became the Prime Minister. 57%
of the country’s wealth lies with 10% of the Indians while the share of the bottom
50% has gone down to 13%. India today ranks as a top country with respect to
wealth inequality. And the system is being tilted more and more in favour of
the rich as indicated by the latest budget.
A small
additional tax (say 5%) on the billionaires of India will bring in an enormous
sum of money that can be used for specific purposes like education of the poor
children, giving them free lunch in schools, ensuring their nutrition and health,
and so on. Instead Modi has chosen to give more and more benefits to these rich
people and tax the poor more and more by allowing the prices of everything from
food to petrol to hit the skies.
The world is
moving ahead with a vision to create a more egalitarian global society. But
India is moving in the opposite direction by widening the gap between the rich
and the poor. Modi has been taking India backward in too many ways. Back towards
ancient myths and their static darkness. Modi is doing to India just what
Christianity did to Europe in the medieval period. Europe eventually rejected
that Christianity. Modi’s Hindutva will become a relic in the due course of
time. Modi himself will become a gargoyle on the edifice of civilised human
history. It’s changes or pitchforks, to paraphrase the conclusion of the open
letter mentioned at the beginning of this post. Listen to history wisely if you
don’t want to end up as a gruesome gargoyle there.
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| Satish Acharya's cartoon on the latest budget |
xZx
I echo your thoughts, Sir ! And this is what happens when there is no fear of opposition, the civil society is clueless of what to do and the same party becomes overconfident of its majority . Time to change everything.
ReplyDeleteIf they don't change themselves, destiny will change them brutally. That's how history works.
DeleteThank you for sharing Satish Acharya's cartoon --a picture paints a thousand words and this one paints the pain of the common man starkly--pitchforks, it is then.
ReplyDeleteWhat baffles me is how long it will take the common person to understand the treachery...
Delete