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| Ganga Vilas |
PM Modi flagged off the world’s longest river cruise
on 13 Jan 2023. The Ganga Vilas will take you from the holy city
of Varanasi to the industrial city of Dibrugarh in 51 days at a cost of Rs55 lakh per suite.
A suite accommodates two travellers. The charge can be more if you opt for
emperor size journey instead of king size.
A few people live their life king
size in India now. India belongs to them according to a recent Oxfam report
titled Survival
of the Richest: The India Story. The richest one percent of Indians
own more than 40% of the country’s wealth, according to the report. The richest 100 people in India
have a total wealth of Rs54.12 lakh crore which is equal to one-and-a-half years
of the central budget. A few rich Indians have the economic potential to
buy the country if they wish. [They are already doing it very surreptitiously
with the help of the central government which is more than happy to sell the
public sector units and forests and minerals and so on.] India already belongs
to this affluent class, says the Oxfam report, for all practical purposes. All
policies that matter are meant to support them and increase their wealth and power.
What about the other side, the poor
Indians? The bottom half – half of the mammoth Indian population – own a meagre
3% of the country’s wealth. Over 46% of Indian families have an income of less
than Rs15,000 per month. Families, mind you, not individuals. Contrast that
with the daily income of, say, Mukesh Ambani: Rs300 crore.
If India puts an additional 5% tax on
its superrich, no Indian will have to go to bed hungry. Yet the government of
India won’t do that. Why? India belongs to the superrich and it does not
belong to the poor majority. This latter group, the poor majority, will eat the
theology of cowdung and drink the intoxication of gaumutra. And they will
experience bliss. The brainwashing that is done relentlessly in the name of
religion and culture has ensured the crudest intoxication of the poor majority
of India.
This new India, which is purported to
be Ram Rajya, will not tax its superrich. The poor pay disproportionately high
taxes, says Oxfam. The poor pay tax for everything from the water they drink to
the education their children get. Essentials like medicine and clothes are
taxed high. To add to all those taxes, the earlier subsidies are taken away
from food items like rice and wheat supplied through public distribution
systems. Many such items have vanished from the system altogether. The Indian
government is eradicating poverty by eradicating the poor, it seems.
Whose government is it? The answer is
obvious.
This government writes off gargantuan
bank loans amounting to Rs10 lakh crore taken by rich business people. If a
poor person takes a small loan of Rs10,000 and cannot repay it in time, this
government will drive him/her from pillar to post and finally to suicide.
Whose government is it?
More and more people commit suicide in India today. 164,033 Indians killed themselves in 2021, according to official statistics. The real figure will be higher, no doubt. The national suicide rate that year was the highest in all the recorded history of suicide in the country. Quite many of these suicides are farmers. Every day 15 farmers chose death in the 2021 Ram Rajya.
When a few
people choose to live life king size, the others get trampled underfoot. There are a few kings in
India now. The already imperilled Gangetic dolphins will die for their sake as
the Ganga Vilas will carry them in majestic suites.
Let me end this with a few highlights
from the Oxfam Report.
·
The richest 21 Indian billionaires have more wealth than 700
million Indians.
·
In the Covid-months, up to Nov 2022, the wealth of the
billionaires in India rose by 121%, that is, Rs 3608 crore per day or Rs2.5
crore per minute.
·
The wealth of the richest individual in India rose by 46% in
2022.
·
The revenue lost in 2020-2021 in the form of incentives given
by the Government of India to the superrich is Rs103,285 crore – enough to
implement MG-NREGA [employment scheme for the poor] for 1.4 year.
·
The Modi government has put a lot more burden on the poor for
the sake of aiding the rich.
The report suggests a very viable solution: tax the
rich. A one-time 20% ta on Gautam Adani’s unrealised capital gains from 2017 to
2021 can potentially raise Rs1.8 lakh crore, enough to pay the annual salary of
the 50 lakh primary school teachers of the country.
Now you know why it is said that India is a rich
country of poor people. Now you know whose country India really is.
We already know that it is the destiny of the donkey
to be the beast of burden.
Hari Om
ReplyDeleteWhile taking on obscene proportions, perhaps, in India, this is not only an Indian problem. The world over we have this issue and although it manifests a little differently here in the UK. That upper entitled echelon exists... and is in government. Meanwhile, more and more folk are sacrificing heating in our winter in order just to have one decent meal a day. Short of full rebellion, I know not how this will resolve. YAM xx
Yes, this widening rich-poor gap is a global phenomenon created by the capitalist system that countries adopted. The solution is to modify that system. That would mean putting curbs on human greed which is not an easy task.
DeleteBleak realities brought out in the post.
ReplyDeleteThe irony is that the government is very popular in spite of all these!
Delete