The ongoing global pandemic is proving to be the biggest challenge India’s economy has faced in the last few decades. The nation-wide lockdown has temporarily slowed the spread of the disease but it has also brought enormous hardship to the poor, who cannot afford the consequences of the loss of livelihood and the economic downturn it will inevitably lead to.
The poor urgently need assistance to avoid the dire effects of not having an income for several months. The rich have the luxury of dipping into their savings or borrowing; the poor don’t have those options. They have to rely on public assistance, and they need it now, not in some distant future. They need a basic income if they have to survive.
Problems are always unwelcome but sometimes if properly understood they present rare opportunities for much-needed and necessary changes. The pandemic presents an opportunity for the government of India to do what should have been done right after India became independent of the British Raj over 70 years ago.
The British rulers of India lived lavishly at the expense of Indian taxpayers — and everyone pays taxes. As foreign rulers, they considered it just and proper that they should live like kings while the people of India suffered poverty and deprivation. They lived in Lutyens’ Delhi in style befitting an imperial power ruling over colonial subjects.
With the end of British Raj, the white rulers vacated Lutyens’ Delhi. Those who took over control of the government of independent India — politicians and bureaucrats — moved into those lavish quarters. It is impossible to justify that. How can those who were supposed to serve the public live like they were imperial rulers of a subject people, and extremely poor people at that?
The basic morality and ethics of the governance of a democratic nation entails that the government is for the people, not for the politicians and bureaucrats. They are public servants, who serve at the will of the people. To serve the people, they must not live like kings. And it is not just a matter of optics. It is more than that it doesn’t “look good.” It shields those in government from understanding the daily struggles of the average Indian.
It is time for the Indian netas and babus to stop living in the lap of luxury, like their British predecessors did. It is also time to provide to the poor the financial support that they desperately need now. The pandemic has connected the two issues: to provide the poor the needed financial support, and to halt the waste of public money that goes into funding the extravagant lifestyles of the politicians and bureaucrats in Delhi and elsewhere.
Tomorrow: Liquidating Lutyens’ Delhi – Part 2
you have correctly captured how the Leaders of the protesters took to the lap of luxury after they won against the Incumbents. whether it was Nehru or Modi.
As correctly pointed out, it gives a great opportunity to rewrite history, as we failed to utilize it in 1947.
Are we different ??