What Would We Do If We Cared More For Indian Poor?

An over-simplification and blame-game I should say.

No more tax evasion: Tax is mostly evaded by the rich business class and not the salaried middle class. Your restaurant example doesn't hold, restaurant owners are not middle class.

Land Reforms:
"We need to redistribute the land in our villages so that every Indian farmer has a piece of land to cultivate and feed himself and his family"

What you are asking for is socialism. Later on farmer A has 10 children and thus 1/10th the land per child. Another farmer B has 2, and thus 2.5 times the land per child compared to A.

You would come into the picture again, and punish the farmer who has less children, take away his land and give to the one with more children.

Do this over and over and we can name our country Somalia-II.

Nice blame-game you play. Now the middle class is responsible for beggars and street children too.

I did not say that tax evasion is the monopoly of the middle-class. In any event, this post is not aimed at the Indian middle-class. When I say "It is not only individuals who evade taxes, but also Indian corporates. In this respect, I think that MNCs in India have a better track record for paying taxes incident on them than our home-bred businesspeople," I am not giving a clean chit to India's rich.

Land reforms would only undo the gross inequity one currently finds in India's villages. It is indeed socialism, but a one-time levelling action, which puts every one on the same playing field. When land is redistributed, farmers with more children don't necessarily get more land.

As for beggars and street children, if Indians were really, really upset by their presence and wanted something to be done about it, our politicians will deliver. That's the way a democracy works. However, if the majority of Indians think the way you do (Now the middle class is responsible for beggars and street children too), nothing will change.

Vinod - You write as though "middle class" is one monolithic voting block, which it clearly isn't.

The main problems are basically of a law and order nature. If our law enforcement machinery is strict, as it is in the West, a lot of the problems would take care of by themselves.

I say, build more courts and prisons. Our incarceration rate is pathetic compared to even the world average, and much worse compared to developed nations. People hardly get convicted even of serious crimes. Of course, for this the whole police force needs to be revamped first.

Redistributing wealth always punishes the hard worker. One farmer toiled hard, spent less, and saved money to buy additional land.

Another one lazed around, didn't have a good crop, sold part of his land.

Now you come with your one time reform and make it equal. What lesson does the hardworking farmer get ?

"When land is redistributed, farmers with more children don't necessarily get more land."

How do you distribute then ? how do you count farmers ? Aren't all children of farmers, farmers too ? At what age does a child become a farmer ?
Whatever figure you put, it rewards people who did a child marriage and had lots of children, punishes those who thought about educating the girl child, marrying later and had less children.

The whole idea is nothing but robbery.

Reservations were supposed to be one time. Now after 60 yrs of reservations, we are still at the same place. After 500 years too people will talk about low caste and high caste.

I wrong idea is always a wrong idea. Socialism is a tried and tested wrong idea. So many examples are there in the world, including India till the 90s.

I would like to do something about the beggars, but I have only 1 vote. Most people vote for reservations, rice at Rs 2/Kg, redistribution of wealth, subsidy etc. The country wants to remain poor and undeveloped. Call it a cynic view if u like.

The majority of this country wants freebies. The country would proper when more people talk about working hard to earn money, and not about robbing other people's hard earned money.

Ledzius, you mentioned more courts and prisons and police. You forgot to add 'poor houses'

Lexiss, are you saying that inequality in India stems mainly from the fact that some farmers work hard and have fewer children than others?

Ledzius, you mentioned more courts and prisons and police. You forgot to add 'poor houses'

Lexiss, are you saying that inequality in India stems mainly from the fact that some farmers work hard and have fewer children than others?

Ledzius, you mentioned more courts and prisons and police. You forgot to add 'poor houses'

Lexiss, are you saying that inequality in India stems mainly from the fact that some farmers work hard and have fewer children than others?

It would be great if the middle class can bring about change of this sort by merely voting for the right party but I don't think that's ever going to happen. The middle class cannot even protect itself from attacks of the moral police (as recent incidents have shown). How are they supposed to lift slum people out of poverty?

Land reforms have been happening for so many years. Infact that was the focus of the government right after independence and waves of land reforms have happened over several decades post independence. Fact is there is too much pressure on the existing land i.e. too many people involved in agriculture (around 70% of the population). All of these people depend on agriculture for survival and most of them are productively employed for only a few months in a year.This is one of the reason which drives them to suicide once crops fail. So I believe we shouldn't be encouraging more people to take up agriculture, just the reverse. We should be encouraging more people from rural areas to take up other jobs (this could be construction activity and infrastructure development intiated by the govt.- Keynesian economics))or self employment in the small scale industries. (The govt. has several schemes on this too but I'm not going to elaborate on them). If all these schemes are implemented properly half of India's problems will be solved. Easier said than done!

I want to add one more point. You had mentioned that increased mobilisation of tax resources could help divert funds for the upliftment of the poor. That maybe true but I guess you also know how a lot of this money never reaches the intended people, most of these schemes are used to siphon huge amounts of money and only a fraction of it is used for developmental purposes.If you want to know more about this you might want google about the corruption involved in the CONG. govt's. fancy scheme NREGA. So allocating funds is not enough, there should be periodic audits.

It would be great if the middle class can bring about change of this sort by merely voting for the right party but I don't think that's ever going to happen. The middle class cannot even protect itself from attacks of the moral police (as recent incidents have shown). How are they supposed to lift slum people out of poverty?

Land reforms have been happening for so many years. Infact that was the focus of the government right after independence and waves of land reforms have happened over several decades post independence. Fact is there is too much pressure on the existing land i.e. too many people involved in agriculture (around 70% of the population). All of these people depend on agriculture for survival and most of them are productively employed for only a few months in a year.This is one of the reason which drives them to suicide once crops fail. So I believe we shouldn't be encouraging more people to take up agriculture, just the reverse. We should be encouraging more people from rural areas to take up other jobs (this could be construction activity and infrastructure development intiated by the govt.- Keynesian economics))or self employment in the small scale industries. (The govt. has several schemes on this too but I'm not going to elaborate on them). If all these schemes are implemented properly half of India's problems will be solved. Easier said than done!

I want to add one more point. You had mentioned that increased mobilisation of tax resources could help divert funds for the upliftment of the poor. That maybe true but I guess you also know how a lot of this money never reaches the intended people, most of these schemes are used to siphon huge amounts of money and only a fraction of it is used for developmental purposes.If you want to know more about this you might want google about the corruption involved in the CONG. govt's. fancy scheme NREGA. So allocating funds is not enough, there should be periodic audits.

@Vinod, #7: No I'm saying that we should not adopt a policy that rewards behavior which are detrimental to the country. Wealth redistribution, loan waivers, subsidy for consumables, all these reward bad behavior.

Eg: When govt waves off loans, what message does it give to those people who repaid the loan ? "Oh I'm such a fool that I paid it off, next time I'll spend the money and default on the loan".

The govt creates an artificial scarcity of education by disallowing private participation. All these are schemes to make sure the poor remain poor.

Anon #9 and Lexiss #10, I wasn't trying to explain what Indians should do if they wanted a society where everyone is equal - those who benefitted from the caste system and those who were oppressed by it for a couple of millennia, those with enough money to never have to work in their whole lives and those who find it difficult to get two square meals a day, those who suffer from obesity and those who are malnourished. I was trying to suggest what Indians (across classes and castes) could do (if they could be generous enough and had the goodness of heart) to help India's poor.

Vinod

How can people get out of poverty by handouts, be they from private charity or government taxation? That is not why people pay taxes so government can redistribute wealth. People pay taxes so government can create and empower infrastructure needed by people to create wealth. Government has to invest in infrastructure that allows economic engine to look after needs of people.

If economic paradigm chosen by a nation is flawed, no amount of taxation or charity can make ALL its people materially self-sufficient, because economy can never become robust enough to take care of ALL its people. Poverty is the symptom of defective economic paradigm. No amount of wealth redistribution can cover that up.

India has paid a high price for rejecting Gandhian decentralized economics in favor of urban-centric centralized economics - slums and poverty are direct byproducts of such follies. By duplicating economic models of west, India has duplicated all the problems found in the west without the accompanying benefits that come with the western economic models. The development should be accessible to aam adami where he lives, instead, he is forced to leave his habitat and compete for scarce resources in the urban centers, creating urban sprawls and slums. Simply giving land to poor will not make him stay in his barren village. His problems are systemic in the kind of economic paradigm pursued by India.

Urban economic model is not kind to social model either - it favors atomization of family. Not even nuclear family is acceptable to it. It demands further atomization of social institutions. It renders community and family to be non-viable and outdated institutions, not accessible to all. So when a trejedy or accident hits any family, it leaves them with no safety net or support system. Unlike west, India can not create government-run social security program to look after safety net of billion plus people. Yet, India is blindly chipping away its decentralized social infra-structure, leaving people exposed and vulnerable. No wonder Aam Adami has become Jamal and Latika.

.. to be continued later....

Lexis:"No I'm saying that we should not adopt a policy that rewards behavior which are detrimental to the country. Wealth redistribution, loan waivers, subsidy for consumables, all these reward bad behavior"
I disagree with this . This kind of thinking assumes that the poor ones are those who don't work enough or are lazy. This couldn't be farther from the truth. I do not support wealth redistribution but the recent loan waiver by the govt. has actually saved several farmers from committing suicide. Crop failures and drought aren't a farmer's fault and no amount of hardwork will save his crops in these kind of situations. So yes, the govt. SHOULD provide a safety net in the form of subisides and loan waivers in adverse condtiions.Why, even the so-called developed nations of the world protect their farmers with subsidies so that they are insulated from external competition. What else do we have a democracy for?


"When govt waves off loans, what message does it give to those people who repaid the loan ? "Oh I'm such a fool that I paid it off, next time I'll spend the money and default on the loan".
Loan waivers are a one-time affair in times of distress. They are time bound. So really there is no way people will expect the govt. to bail them out next time.


"I was trying to suggest what Indians (across classes and castes) could do (if they could be generous enough and had the goodness of heart) to help India's poor."
Well, we could make tax evasion more difficult. But I don't understand how the other two solutions you mentioned would work.

kerty: "India has paid a high price for rejecting Gandhian decentralized economics in favor of urban-centric centralized economics"
How does this particular model work?


"Urban economic model is not kind to social model either - it favors atomization of family. Not even nuclear family is acceptable to it"
I agree. Capitalization favours atomisation of society. It removes the safety net that traditional societies had in the form of a larger kin group. However I believe nuclear family is perfect for a capitalistic society. An economic model which renders families redundant will collapse by itself.

One is reminded of Gandhiji's idea of empowering the villages. From the beginning he was vocal about it and expreimented in a few places. But the idea was lost in many leaders' minds and also the people. Now villages are being left to cope on their own.

so long as villages are not having self-sufficiency, and local bodies do not do their jobs, where is the change going to come from? Accountability in every public body and local leaders will bring in change. Will it ever happen?