A new study by the World Inequality Lab highlighted one of the most obvious facts, i.e., the income and wealth inequalities in India have been rising and are now worse than the colonial period. The study highlights that “Inequality declined post-independence till the early 1980s, after which it began rising and has skyrocketed since the early 2000s. Trends of top income and wealth shares track each other over the entire period of the study. Between 2014-15 and 2022-23, the rise of top-end inequality has been particularly pronounced in terms of wealth concentration. By 2022-23, the top 1% income and wealth shares (22.6% and 40.1%) are at their highest historical levels and India’s top 1% income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.”
The study suggests that “A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalization. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments.”
This is probably not a good time to publish such reports which highlight any deficiencies in India's governance model. The opposition parties use these reports as a tool to attack the government. The ruling party rejects the finding as malicious propaganda to malign the image of the country and its government - everyone misses the point, i.e., there may be some serious flaws in the socio-economic development model used in the past five decades by various governments. These flaws, on the one hand, may have resulted in a widening of socioeconomic disparities, and on the other hand, might have constricted the growth and development of the country.
Bloomberg columnist Andy Mukherjee opined “‘Billionaire Raj’ Is Pushing India Toward Autocracy”. A known critic of the establishment, Mukherjee extorted the voters to ask questions. He wrote, “The super-rich have opened their wallets to Modi, and income inequality has soared over the past decade. With an election coming, ordinary voters need to ask, ‘What’s in it for us?’”
My view is that India never had democracy. We have always been a feudal society. In the post-independence era, democracy has mostly been a tool to capture feudal power. Since the late 1970s most parties have used the façade of socialism to become feudal (e.g., BSP, SP, RJD, and DMK, TDP, TMC, BRS, AAP, etc.) BJP also adopted Gandhian Socialism as its guiding philosophy briefly. The longest-ruling Congress party had turned feudal in the late 1960s. Parties like SAD, PDP, NC, NCP, YSRCP, etc., have been blatantly feudal ab initio.
We, the people of India, have always celebrated the feudal powers of our leaders. The poor and oppressed admired and vehemently defended, for example, the diamond jewelry of Mayawati, the Luxury cars of Mulayam and Lalu, the riches of the Badal, Jayalalitha & Karunanidhi clan, and the variety of designer attires of our prime minister.
The unemployed, ill, starving, and oppressed take pride in some Indians making a place in the Forbes list of global rich, spending billions on their children's weddings, and visiting temples to ask for more wealth from God.
They also feel empowered in queueing up for hours to shower rose petals on their leaders’ retinue of luxury cars in meaningless pretentious roadshows.
They celebrate when patriarchs of the parties they support, “nominate” their favorites to public offices. No one wonders that they have been given no right to elect their representatives or leaders. Feudal parties impose people of their choice as the parliament, assembly, and local body candidates on them. The set of people who would be PM, CM, Mayor, minister, governor, etc., is pre-determined by patriarchs irrespective of who is elected or defeated in the elections. Nobody is interested in discussing or following any ideologies.
The people who suffer the most do not seek accountability from their leaders. On the contrary, the random guys daring to ask questions are termed seditious by the same people. No one dares to challenge the feudal lords.
The debate should therefore be on the core issue – “Whether we should end the pretense and choose between a true representative democracy or a proper Monarchy?”
My vote is for a true democracy, where people choose their representatives (not merely vote for the candidates imposed on them by some random guys sitting in Delhi party office).
