Prodigal 'Pappu's' Populist Promise Prods Paupers; Punitive Plausibility Percolates

"We have decided that every poor person in India would be guaranteed a minimum income after the Congress forms the government in 2019... No one will go hungry in India, no one will remain poor." - Rahul Gandhi
 
    That is The Scion's verbatim at a farmers rally in the central state of Chhattisgarh on Monday, Jan. 28, 2019.
    That is three days before the existing government's interim budget presentation; three months before the country goes to polls.
 
    The proposal would apparently eliminate poverty and could be executed via navigating funds currently spent on subsidy programmes that most often do not reach the poor.
    Who are this poor? The people living on less than Rs. 32 a day in rural areas and Rs. 47 a day in urban areas? Just them?
    What about those, who keep skipping lunches to save money to send their wards to a better school?
    What about those, who work odd hours at the expense of own health to provide better medication for ailing kin?
    What about those, who stay away from the tiniest of luxuries to dream for an own shelter?
 
    They are not poor. They are not poor because they earn more than what some diplomats defined to be called poor. Then again, it's subjective, right?
    Some people just choose to be poor. Foolish people with a handful of aspirations, ambitions and agonizingly astonishing dreams. They have a generic name too. They're called the Middle Class monkeys.
    They chatter, they grumble, they desire, they dissent. Then they go and cast their votes for someone who's not good, but just not as bad as the others available at disposal.
    And alongside the other truths of life, would carry on accepting their designated fates in the name of taxes that help build their country for the better.
    They'll pay a considerable part of their hard-earned salary in income taxes.
    They'll pay a sizable part of their earnings in service taxes in health centers, banking and financial institutions, and restaurants.

    They'll pay a substantial part of their income in value added taxes on each and every product they buy.
    And now, they'll pay some more of it to ensure no one is poor in the country.
    The problem is that the lower rung of the economic ladder in the country doesn't quite aim and the upper rung of the ladder doesn't quite bother. Well, almost always.
    So every time it comes back biting the ones who are caught in the middle -- the ones, not poor enough to expect or rich enough to expunge expectations.
    Thus far, that's the emotional rant of just another caught hanging in the middle.
 
    Now, let's greet a few numbers that underpin facts.
    Soon after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party took a beating in some state polls early December, Mr. Rahul Gandhi announced a nationwide waiver of farm loans to appease farmers -- a crucial vote-bank as half of the nation's workforce still depends on agriculture.
    Now, Edelweiss thinks this could cost up to 3 trillion rupees, which is equivalent to 1.4 percent of India's GDP.
    For the third-largest economy in the Asian continent, which is trying hard to bring down deficit to a planned 3.1 percent by March 2020, generosity is nothing but a far-flung caricature.
    Market watchers believe more than half of last year's capital expenditure, or about 2.5 percent of GDP, was funded through state-owned companies in everything from power to railways. And, a more pragmatic estimate of the true fiscal deficit in current financial year is closer to 4.2 percent.
    So in order to ensure whatever "minimum income" again some diplomats juggle up for the real poor, who'll come to rescue? If the motherland is not in such a good shape to be the provider of all sorts, where will the funds come from?
    They'll come from the most dependable tax payers, who belong to the middle and can't escape like the ones on top, who still has an option to fly away and nest elsewhere on the globe.
    The ones at the bottom can't make noises anyway as they're the ones apparently to benefit from this propaganda pledge punting a pocketful of pennies.
 
    While this appears really hunky-dory in assuming that this might be a game-changer and make happiness shine for the poor, this is not something like a Universal Basic Income, where everyone is entitled to get a fixed income from the government. One needs to understand that.
 
    It's money -- it's coming via politicos -- and, it's India.
    Aren't we smart enough to decode this? Easy-peasy, right?

    Even if we assume for a moment the Congress with its utmost degree of honesty attempts to eradicate poverty as it's promising now, there would be an infinite number of roadblocks and potholes to implement a scheme such as this in such a complex country.
 
    The existing Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGA) is also meant to serve similar ideas -- helping the needy with at least 100 days of guaranteed jobs, thus guaranteed income.
    But, did it work? Did it benefit the poor? There are innumerable documented cases across the country, where MNREGA workers never got their wages even after working, while others never got to work, and some eligible others had to pay middlemen first to ensure they get their names called for those government-assured jobs.
    Economics suggest, in a widely-agricultural rural India, where farmers get battered by operational holdings with 30 peasants farming a plot of land ideally meant for about 3, how do you evaluate who's poor in the first place!
    Anyway welfare schemes are always meant to brew corruption somewhere inside the pipeline. And then, delinquency might as well come from the recipients. Doesn't a guaranteed minimum income reduce the incentive to work? Then just in a world of vote-bank politics, there will be generations of poor families living on welfare with no intentions of coming out of it. And, a RaGa saga would continue for some years and we'll get another Bharat Ratna with the fans and followers touting like-father-like-son.
 
    So the newly-induced war-cry from the opposition, which has been trying to herd up lately to oust the existing regime, is more of a blistering bullshit than a harbinger of happiness.
    But then, critics might argue, I'm perpetually pessimistic and it's actually Baby Gandhi's one endearing endeavor to bring holistic happiness to crybaby countrymen.

[Image Courtesy - Cartoonist Satish Acharya from Google Images]

Temple Tango & Political Pandemonium -- Just Not Worth It

There are women who silently steer seminal civil rights movements, there are women who fight against society and its norms for education and upliftment, there are women who constantly lead from the front to nurture a balanced workplace environment, and then there are women who get famous for sneaking in a house.
    House. Yes. In this case, one, where a God resides. Certainly, the women who defied a customary ban to enter a temple has got nothing to do with religious practices or offerings to a faith. They just used a religious shrine for a political podium to get famous.
    And, what was the cost of these two ladies getting famous? Sufferings of common people -- belonging to all kinds of faiths, who never signed up to partake in any political propaganda.
    Small businesses were forced to remain shut, taxi drivers halted services at the fear of being attacked while public transports were damaged, and schools were closed as protests paralyzed a particular Indian state.
    No. This can't be the collateral damage for 'renaissance' in a state, where the ruling governance suggests not being in line with the nation's choice of rulers collated in terms of religious inclinations. To put it simply, Kerala had chosen Left Democratic Front, while India elected a Hindu-nationalist party.
    The very basic context of Sabarimala is not equality of rights, or right to religion, but only and only political.
    Let's take a step back and try reasoning it why of all things, this is anything but religious.
    The very premise of Ayappa and the ban on menstruating women entering his temple is that he's a sworn celibate. And, the polytheistic religion that Hindusim is, allows to associate humane qualities to gods and goddesses as irrespective of geographies across the country, they are worshipped not just as a mother but also as a daughter, or, not just as a father but also as a son.
    In the way-of-life, where you practice your god to be as human as yourself, does necessarily leave the scope of the vices of man even in the deity. That's the crude spiritual way of deciphering why women were not allowed to enter a shrine that houses a celibate young male god.
    Even more interesting is the fact that Ayappa is a syncretic deity, which nurtures a confluence of different tributaries of faith in the names of Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism. He is even honored by some Muslims in Kerala, thanks to legends and folklores.
    The Sabarimala temple is located within a present-day tiger reserve and if Ayappan iconography is to be resorted, the god's representation depicts him riding tigers. Even a very pragmatic assessment of the association with the carnivore would rest arguments that the fierce animals walked the place.
    So, the sensible reasoning from a societal approach on the ban disallowing women to take a strenuous and dangerous pilgrimage was perhaps, to protect them.
    Yes, of course, what's the need for that now? Women can protect themselves well enough and the temple is no longer inaccessible. But then, we're dealing with a vowed celibate male here. And, there's a reason why the primal part of any Hindu temple complex is called sanctum sanctorum, where sanctity, rituals and beliefs take precedence over whims of desire and motif-driven advocacy.
    If it was about gender equality in access for religious offerings, tradition would have stood guard. But, it was never about that. It was just to prove a point, which itself had no point in the first place.
    The moment it had to adopt a guerilla hide-and-seek tactic, feminism took a hit in the foot. The fact the activists acknowledged this couldn't have been done in broad daylight, or, without police protection defeated the case and belittled the movement if at all there was any. Again, it was never a religious cause. It was just another agenda for some to grab limelight and become famous overnight.
    Have we ever given it a thought, why it has to be Sabarimala in Kerala for all the outrage? Why not Shani Shingnapur in Maharashtra or, Patbausi Satra in Assam?
    If we're talking about gender equality and equal accessibility to worship, why are we talking in splinters? It should be generic and collective for everyone. Let's allow all men to enter each and every temple, where traditions and practices  disallow entry to them. Why is it difficult for some women to admit the diversity in beliefs and abide by the customs that come along with them? Because, they don't know what they want. Rather, why they want!
    The vast stretch of land that India is houses a host of temples, where men are not allowed to enter. Let's take for instance the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple, which not so surprisingly, is also in Kerala. The temple, dedicated for worshipping a form of the Mother Goddess, made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for the single largest gathering of women for a religious activity, where men were not allowed to participate.
    Another such example would be Kanya Kumari, as the name  suggests in vernacular, belongs to a young female goddess who turned ascetic and hence, men are prohibited there as well.
    In the temples of the Bhagwathi in Chengannur (also in modern-day Kerala) and Kamakhya (Assam), divinity marries a very basic human trait. The presiding deities in both the temples, who are goddesses, are believed to menstruate and follow socially-imposed practices of menstrual seclusion and the temples remain shut. But, every time they re-open, there are celebrations in the name of rituals.
    In a religion, which considers women as Prakriti or the nourishing mother, champions health and fertility in the form of voluptuous depictions of female deities, follows rituals to celebrate the moments of girls attaining puberty, cannot be just as shallow to not let women enter a particular temple for being women.
    The problem is traditions begin on rational and moral grounds, but the rhyme or reason dies with time, leaving only preaches and practices. And in most cases, what remains is misrepresentations and misinterpretations.
    It's evidently a memory game, where the one who remembers, wins. But all those who lose, define majority.
    And those who are at fault, always need unwarranted distractions and baseless deliberations. It's just as perennial as the woes and frowns of common people, and smiles and pity on the faces of gods.