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In Tax We Trust

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.

Satish Acharya's cartoon on the latest budget

xZx

 

Comments

  1. Chinmayee Gayatree SahuFebruary 6, 2022 at 1:06 PM

    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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 6, 2022 at 1:48 PM

      If they don't change themselves, destiny will change them brutally. That's how history works.

      Delete
  2. ArtiFebruary 7, 2022 at 2:00 PM

    Thank 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.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 7, 2022 at 5:58 PM

      What baffles me is how long it will take the common person to understand the treachery...

      Delete

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