Sushil Kutty
Bribing voters from public podium! How will it be done without plunging the country’s economy in a tailspin? The economics doesn’t agree with the arithmetic; hell, the econometrics is beyond the math. But then, who cares how it’s done, so long as it’s done? It’s philanthropy of the highest order, ask Bill Gates. And there’s no sin in it.
All welfare states do it. Even those which aren’t social welfare states do it in some form or the other. From the United States to Finland! They call it by various names – food stamps to social security – but a rose by any name is still a rose. And think of it this way: Since Independence, four generations of India’s poor have lived in penury and died in penury, isn’t it time the fifth generation got at least one meal a day? If anybody thinks it is wasteful expenditure, go take a hike, a tax hike not a salary hike!
Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s promise to give a minimum guaranteed income to the poor of the country if elected to power is revolutionary to the poor of the land, of whom there are a legion, between 300 and 350 million. Rahul Gandhi says elect a Congress Government and he will see to it every poor man gets an assured dole, “you’ll not go to bed on an empty stomach.” With that, say Congress supporters, who too are becoming a legion, Rahul Gandhi has taken the wind out of the sails of the BJP’s sinking scallywag.
Right! For the moment, Rahul’s generous side has left the BJP’s buccal cavity lost in translation. According to former AAP man in the loop, Ashutosh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has something similar in Budget 2019-20. Somebody leaked the Budget. Means, somebody under Arun Jaitley’s watch made a pretty penny. Ashutosh calls the leaker “my source” and Ashutosh cannot be made to disclose because he’s back to playing journalist!
The question boils down to, ‘Is it fair on the hardworking taxpayer, his money going to pay for Rahul’s Congress to get a majority?’ 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi – Priyanka Gandhi’s lookalike – floated the slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ to come to power though some would say it was ‘East Pakistan Hatao’ which got her another term. At the time, there were around 200+ million poor and she did transfer a decimal of the GDP to the poor man’s pocket.
Since then, other Governments have tried the ploy in some or the other form. MNERGA for one and Modi’s Ujwala and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana for a couple of another. Problem is these doles are not leak-proof and money earmarked for them have gone to line the pockets of politicians and sundry bureaucrats. The charge against Rahul is that he jumped the gun to beat BJP to crosshair without applying mind. That is kind of thin because the devils in the detail can be worked out once ‘Satan’ is out of the reckoning.
And it is not as if India will be pioneer; countries worldwide have played welfare state with varying degrees of success. Even a greedy capitalist behemoth like the United States; where living on stamps is in the popular lore. It’s another matter that most of the stamps end up in liquor vends. One lid on hiccup is to give the food stamps to the woman of the house. In the United States, single black mothers do justice to food stamps. In India, the tribe of laggard lazybones will grow. A constituency of dependents will elect the Government of the day.
Productivity will take a hit and productive citizens will have to do double and triple the work to keep Rahul Gandhi or Narendra Modi in power. In fact, that’s a grand thought: A small elite of very high value citizens – millionaires, billionaires and trillionaires – keeping the poor on doles so that income disparities don’t become source of social and political unrest. Except that a bunch of ‘un-smart townships’ will have to be created to keep such burdens bottled and in the bottle!
It’s a whole new economy we’re talking about. A ‘mixed economy’, in Adam Smith lingo, and will require entirely new social and economic engineering. But for economists like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, it’ll be child’s play. If out of guilt billionaires are doing it at the Gates Melinda – Bezos and Tata and Birla, maybe even Ambani and Adani, hordes of ‘Good Muslim Zakats’, also – why cannot Governments do it? Governments can even finance such initiatives with kickbacks, no questions asked.
For now, the glow is in the Congress camp. But the BJP can carry the day, if the Modi government on February 1 rolls out and implements a universal basic income dole for the poor. Congress/Rahul Gandhi has only promised a minimum guaranteed income if elected to power. Voters may go for dictum ‘a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.’ Either way, the desi Oliver Twist has the chance at getting another helping of thin gruel! (IPA)
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