The Circus called Politics

Illustration by ChatGPT

I have/had many students whose parents are teachers in schools run or aided by the government. These teachers don’t send their own children to their own schools where education is free. They send their children to private schools like the one where I’ve been working. They pay huge fees to teach their children in schools where teachers are paid half of or less than their salaries. This is one of the many ironies about the Kerala society.

An article in yesterday’s The Hindu [A deeper meaning of declining school enrolment] takes an insightful look at some of the glaring social issues in Kerala’s educational system. One such issue is the rapidly declining student enrolment in government and aided schools in the state. The private schools in the state, on the other hand, are getting more students.

People don’t want to send their children to the schools run by the government systems. The chief reason is that the medium of instruction is Malayalam. The second is the substandard quality of the teaching-learning process. However, the disparity between the salaries of the teachers in the two types of schools is shockingly high.

This post does not intend to discuss the education system of Kerala. Rather, it seeks to highlight a very unjust sociopolitical system that is in practice in the state. A small fraction of the state’s population is eating up the lion’s share of the state’s revenues. This is leading to wide economic inequalities and consequent discontent. Some of the discontent is spilling out these days to public spaces in the form of sit-in protests and rallies.

A tiny fraction of Kerala’s population gets paid from the government coffers, and a substantial part of the state’s revenues goes into the salaries and pensions of that tiny fraction. For example, in the fiscal year 2021-22, the total spending on salaries and pensions amounted to ₹72,678.77 crore, surpassing the state's own revenue of ₹68,803.03 crore.

Over the years, there has been a notable increase in these expenditures. Between 2016-17 and 2023-24, the expenditure on salaries recorded an increase of 43.53%. During the same period, pension liabilities grew by 67.86%. [The Times of India] Salaries and pensions of a small part of Kerala’s population consume the bulk of the state’s revenues, in short.

This morning’s newspapers in Kerala carry the report that the Public Service Commission staff are going to get a substantial hike in their monthly salaries. The chairman’s basic monthly salary is to rise from Rs 76,450 to Rs 224,100. Similarly, a member’s monthly salary is to be revised from Rs 70,290 to Rs 219,000. Apart from the salaries, these people are also entitled to many benefits such as house rent allowance and travel allowance. This is happening in a state where the Accredited Social Health Activists [ASHA] are not being paid their meagre monthly salary of Rs7000 because the government has no funds.

That is just an example. There are plenty of people [though they form a small fraction of the state’s population] who are a big drain on the state’s revenues. These people on whose salaries and pensions the state expends most of its wealth do little service in reality. They enjoy life at the cost of the majority of the population. The only work they seem to do is to hike their salaries and other benefits every now and then.

The politicians in the state are the worst leeches. Their only job is to give dramatic speeches [many of which are substandard] justifying what they and their supporters do. All political leaders in Kerala have a whole train of supporting staff like advisors, secretaries, personal assistants, peons, PROs, drivers, cooks… all of whom are entitled to massive salaries from the government.

I started with the example of teachers. I have been working in the private sector as a teacher. The school from which I’m retiring [yet again] has about 2400 students whereas the government and aided schools in the vicinity are struggling to get students. But the disparity in the pay-scales of the two systems can jolt you if you care to find out the relevant details.

Kerala’s [and most other Indian states’] social-political-economic system is just like the ancient caste system. One tiny section of people sits on top of the others enjoying all benefits. What makes Kerala particularly striking is that instead of changing the system, more people are just trying to enter into that top caste by becoming at least a sycophant of a politician. A personal staff of a political leader in Kerala is entitled to massive lifelong pension after ‘serving’ [doing nothing, that is, other than singing alleluia to the leader] for just two years.

Kerala has to make radical changes to its social-political-economic system. The present set of politicians – left, liberal, or right – can’t do it because they all seem to have been rendered morally impotent by the system itself. They don’t even have the guts to stand up in the Parliament and tell the Bigg Boss there that the state is being ditched year after year by the central annual budgets.

Our political leaders are like clowns in a gargantuan circus!