How long can the middle classes be expected to subsidise the poor?

In a television discussion about the Food Bill, the anchor at one point asked me in exasperation, How long can the middle classes be expected to subsidise the poor? says Harsh Mander on page 13 of H Times today, the 25th March, 2012. Before we discuss the pros & cons of the question posed by such a wise, all knowing member of our media, let us have a historical peep at the behaviour of the middle classes in our country. The bureaucrats were headstrong, despotic & corrupt as all the energy of the government was centered on wars and diplomacy. The civil servants got full freedom to do whatever they pleased. Kalhan tells us that the civil servants were given to vice and behaved like demons. They cared more for acquiring wealth than for the good of their people.. The people groaned under the tyranny of the civil servants and they were swallowed by the office rather than death The traders and merchants behaved in a very objectionable manner. The only motive before them was profit and acquisition of more wealth. Kalhan refers to their sandal covered foreheads, eyelids, earlobe. their huge bellies and their exploitation. Kshemenmdra refers to the various methods adopted by them to exploit people such as false weights, measures and balances, high rates of interest etc. They posed as religious people , listened to lectures on religion, took long baths on the occasion of eclipses, .. There were references to merchants storing cereals, cotton and salt and charging high prices from their customers and also cheating them
Excerpts form History of medieval India by V D Mahajan. The reference is to the chapter on, India on the eve of Muslim conquest.

Pavan Varma in his very illuminating & a very readable book, The Great Indian Middle Class opines that our middle class has hijacked India. He reveals, if I remember right, that on adding up the total budget spent on education by the centre and states together over the 1st 50 years of our independence, it stands out that the budget spent on school education has been a fraction of budget devoted for the college level and post graduate level education. Who benefited most from this generosity? The middle classes. Who were the decision makers? The middle classes. Who was subsidizing whom, in this scenario? From the past let us now scan our present behaviour : There is a lot of debate going on, on corruption these days. So a simple question becomes relevant. How many of us from the middle classes insist on the shop keeper making a pucca bill and paying the VAT ? If not, why is that not corruption? Those 37/- or 1037/- rupees worth of tax not paid, is it not income that I have not earned, is not legitimate and therefore is it not corruption?

Recently a group of senior citizen morning walkers adorning the benches in a park were fiercely debating the issue of corruption and vehemently castigating all politicians and bureaucrats. I raised this point about paying VAT and the prompt response was very revealing. YEH TAX HUM KYON DEIN? ISS MEIN TOH APNA FAEDA HAI. And that brings me to aL Faeda , a brilliant article, Dangers of aLFaeda written by Shri Raj Mohan Gandhi in H Times of July 30, 2011. To quote, I am not thinking of India as a travel destination. I am thinking of the image of India in the world. And even beyond the image, of the reality of our encounter with ourselves. I have heard of a soccer jibe in another multi-cultural country: Dont give the Indian a corner, he will open a shop in it. The jest ranks with: The Indian will pocket any insult if it comes with a little profit as well. And Indian businessmen are not to be branded as profiteers merely because they make profits, which by their profession they have to. But profits is one thing, exploitation is another. And where that occurs, it isnt restricted to the business community alone, Far from it. Exploitativeness is a temperament that can be seen in varied fields. In simple Hindustani, one expression catches its sense better than the words lexical equivalent. And it is : faeda-uthana taking advantage of. We are past masters in taking undue advantage of things. Be it a professional opportunity, a system, or even an appliance, we saturate its possibilities to the very limit. The trans India movement of cheap labour from its eastern states to its western & southern for contract construction work brings to mind aerial photographs of thirsty denizens of African grasslands leaving in hundreds for less inhospitable terrain. The loss of stability, and of dignity and of health and of anchoring, especially on migrating women and infants, is astounding. Talking of our tendency of exploitativeness, let us ponder a while on how do we treat our domestic servants. We the middle classers would be horrified if our terms of service are made into 7 days work week. But, how many of us grant a weekly off to the maid. And what about the hours of working. We do put in 10 / 12 /14 hours in our offices once in a while, mostly of our own accord, but we do expect our morning cup of tea served at seven am or earlier as well as hot chappaties being served at 9 pm each & every day. Schemes like MNREGA are castigated on the premise that only a small %age out of the huge investment would reach the poor. If it doesnt, who are the thieves? Surely, not the poor. Even the village sarpanches, who are the ultimate distributors of this money, tend to belong to well-to-do category. The contribution of the middle classes to the surge in our GDP is to be appreciated undoubtedly be it in IT industry or be it in expanding manufacturing industry or be it by the well-to-do farmers of Punjab or Haryana or other states.

But that raises a basic question. Do the middle classes have a greater right on the inputs like land, the minerals, the forests, the water supply that come from the bowels of mother earth and without which no final output can be had. Or does this bonanaza belong to all that take birth in any country. Or does the enlightened T V anchor, who posed the question to Harsh Mander, believe in the Divine Right of the middle classes? Food for thught. Isnt it?