Recently, the rights group Oxfam released a study titled
"Time to Care", just ahead of the annual Meet-Greet-Eat-Retreat
(MGER) event of the world's rich and powerful in Davos, the famous ski resort
of Switzerland. The study once again highlights the burgeoning economic
inequalities in the world and its potential impact on the global socio-economic
conditions.
The report highlights that presently the personal wealth of 2153
global billionaires is more than the combined wealth of 4.6billion, which is
about 60% of the planet's human population.
In Indian context, the conditions appear to be even worse. As
per the report, the combined wealth of top 63 richest persons in India is more
than the annual budget of the country, which was Rs24.42trn n FY19. The report
further states that India's richest 1% people hold more than 4x the combined wealth
of 953 million people who make up for the bottom 70% of the country's
population.
The statistics are staggering by any standard.
Within overall parameters of the economic inequality, the gender
inequality is even more alarming. As per the report, it would take a female
domestic worker 22,277 years to earn what a top CEO of a technology company
makes in one year.
The report further states, that women and girls put in 3.26
billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day -- a contribution to the
Indian economy of at least Rs 19 lakh crore a year, which is 20 times the
entire education budget of India in 2019 (Rs 93,000 crore).
The report suggests that even a meager 2% (of GDP) direct public
investments in the care economy could potentially create 11 million new jobs.
The women who are forced to "take care" of the household spend
billions of hours cooking, cleaning and caring for children and the elderly.
They get little time for education, skill building to be able to earn a decent
living or have a say in how our societies are run, and who are therefore
trapped at the bottom of the economy.
Another study presented by Edelman, highlighted that this
unsustainable skew in global wealth and income, may be fast eroding the
confidence in the system of capitalism itself.
The rise of socialism on both sides of the Atlantic may just be
a harbinger of this trend.
Back home, the rise in the cases of civic unrest in past few
years needs to be viewed from this angle also. The Patidar agitation in
Gujarat, the farmers' protest in Maharashtra, the tribal protests in central
India, the student protests across the country over a variety of issues may
have one underline theme, i.e., economic stress and poor visibility of
livelihood and growth.
In my view, it would be completely wrong to assume that the
recent student's protests are merely to oppose recent amendment in the
Citizenship law, or proposed population enumeration exercises.
The fact is that a common Indian youth is disillusioned, totally
frustrated and deeply distressed.
First, the education they are getting is very expensive and
mostly sub-standard.
Second, the employability quotient of youth graduated from most
of the universities is abysmal.
Third, there are not enough job opportunities even for those who
are competent. The conditions are truly pathetic beneath the facade of elite
IIMs, IITs and ISBs.
Dismissing the protests merely as anti BJP propaganda would be
monumental blunder on the part of the administration and the entire political
establishment.
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