By 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 Service)
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