Wednesday Brief

Some stray thoughts on this Wednesday of Jan 2020, which I would like to share with you all.

1 Sometimes I wonder, in which type of democracy we Indians are living or it is democracy in only name with only voting rights. Once you have casted your vote then you do not know in what way your elected representative are going to behave. Now there are different types of elected representatives and they are mainly from the different political parties having different ideologies also, which could be poles apart. Like some political parties believe in communist way of living and these are called leftist parties and at the other pole are  political parties with capitalist ideology and they are termed as Rightist parties, and then there are some political parties who take middle path.

After the independence, we adopted the system which was called socialism which was mainly based on communism. In this system most of the things were under govt and govt used to decide what type of facilities would be provided to common man. In this most of the day to day needs of common man was provided by the govt at  a subsidised rate and rich and super rich were taxed very highly. Which meant the rich were financing the life style needs of common man. By this system majority of Indians got used to getting things at cheaper/subsidised rate or sometimes even at free of cost.

But by the end of 80s communist system started failing throughout the world and most of the countries in the world were left with no choice to switch over to market economy system, which means that market will decide the price of every commodity, whether it is consumable, durable or even real estate. Even Indian govt was forced to turn to market economy, but it happened in phased manner, and we were still operating in dual manner.

Although the scenario in the market was changing but the mindset of common people was not changing and still they were after freebies or subsidised rates. Now even after 3 decades of using mixed economy, the Indian govt is still not able to move away from freebies, just because for politicians offering freebies is part of vote catching gimmicks, whether after the elections these politicians may not even honour the freebies promises. But once they are in power then they are least bothered, and again after 5 years same promises will be made again.

For every govt whether at centre or state till date it is always a dilemma how  to give in freebies and what to tax, so that govt can function. It seems that till date most of the times, no govt has done away with freebies completely, which indirectly means that more you offer as freebies then more you have to collect in taxes. Till date both govts at  centre and at different states are running with deficit budgeting. State govts borrow from central govt and central govt borrows from world financial institutions.

2 Now coming to political parties and politicians :

First the leftist, the Communist party was ruling in few states of India till a decade back and the main state which they ruled for more than 3 decade was West Bengal, and Kerala intermittently. As the communism started fading away from world, slowly the leftist are no where on the Indian political scene.

Now the Congress which started with socialistic pattern, and was instrumental in turning to market economy pattern have ruled the country for the maximum duration, more than 5 decades. They are expert in creating slogans, and offering  freebies as vote bank tactics, but majority of the times they failed to fulfil their promises. Their slogan of ‘Garibo Hatao’ or ‘Remove Poverty’ has been going on for 5 decades but poverty has increased and never decreased in their rule. Secondly this party was the main culprit of offering cash benefits through social welfare schemes, the cash never reached the needy and was grabbed by middlemen on the way. This was followed by other political parties who originated as off shoot from the Congress party. Congress is still following this footstep of social welfare schemes and giving freebies/loan waiver as vote bank tactics.

Now BJP, which once claimed to be the different party, when came to power had a tough time because their rightist policies were initially difficult to digest by even govt officials/bureaucrats  but slowly and steadily they are inching forward to promote their policies in a big way. One thing is different of this party is that they generally do not promise freebies and say that their motto is ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. Their aim is to provide enough earning so that the common man can survive in open economy, but till date their success on this issue is not encouraging. One thing which is plus point for them is that other than economical benefits, whatever they promise to electorate they try to fulfil the same, prime examples are demolition of Babri Masjid, abolishing Triple Talaq among Muslims, removing article 370 from Kashmir, Lord Ram temple at Ayodhaya, and Citizen amendment act. These were some of the major promises which they gave to electorate that once they come to power they will do it.

Now there is one more type of Political party at this juncture and that party is Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which took its birth from protest against Lok Pal  issue. This party which started as different from 2 main parties BJP and Congress is turning out to be party whose main aim is to  abuse PM of ruling party (BJP) and only offering freebies of different kind without realising its effect on the economy of the ruling state. The president of this party is very arrogant and he thinks he is the best leader of the country. On the promise of giving freebies he is winning elections and ruling one state.

So friends what you say on this issue.

Please do communicate your views/feed backs/comments

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

22^nd Jan 2020(