Social media is enlightenment, gratis. The other day, I came across a you-tube video showing a young, swashbuckling fellow at the steering wheel of a swanky car, upholstery gleaming with abundant elegance and luxury, truly a neighbour’s envy, owner's pride. He was animatedly speaking into an invisible mic to an invisible person ; or was it a soliloquy feeding an invisible Bluetooth gadget relaying Socratic wisdom to the world at large, I couldn’t exactly make out. Gazing ,awestruck, through the windscreen at the captivating vista of a newly built multi-lane Delhi-Meerat Highway unfolding before him, he gloated with infectious exuberance,
‘ look how speedily my car is gliding along ! India now has world class marvellous Highways. Smooth, decongested, no bumps , bumper time savers ! Tires won’t wear out , maintenance costs will be lower, and the car will last longer. If all these benefits come from higher fuel prices why should anyone mind paying for it ? And the poor don’t travel in cars ,so they aren’t affected by petrol prices. Why then all the brouhaha over rising fuel prices ? Besides, the fuel taxes I pay finances government . That’s patriotic, isn’t it ? I find nothing to crib about.”
Scene II - A person, looking young, is being interviewed on one of the scores of non-descript ‘exclusive’ news channels that abound on social media. He opines, cooking gas price touching the 1000 ₹ mark is no worry, ‘just cut some personal expenses and a bit of expendable( ‘phaltu’) expenses , that’s all. It’s of no consequence.’
Economic liberalisation and the concomitant phenomenal growth in the service sector have spawned a new generation of highly talented, aspirational, outgoing, upwardly mobile yet a wee bit restless job hoppers ,many among them DICs(double income couples) , and all of them invariably with surplus money to splurge around. This neo-rich class is hedonistically consumerist, wanting the very best the world has to offer ; the high living not insignificantly fuelled by easy availability of credit. They are distinct from the archetypal laid back rich found in the annals of Indian history - the nawabs, bhadraloks. They are hard working achievers , not inheritors of wealth. Unfortunately, it is a generation that is not empathetic towards the lower classes that mothered the parents of many of them. It is too self centred and pathetically indifferent to the impact of state actions on the meek, the lesser endowed. And that is what brings forth responses like these from some of them.
What about politicians, the men who supposedly have their antennas tuned to the masses ? We have a state minister advising those who find petrol unaffordable to ride three to a bike instead of grumbling. And a central one advises that for free vaccines one must pay for it through higher taxes on oil and gas. So, after all the vaccines did not come free. Under the sole of Bharat Mata, in Sri Lanka, citizen get free vaccines without having to pay additional taxes on petrol. But then they are the scriptural demons, and we the ordained devas.
The FM, that embodiment of arrogance and nonchalance, has an understandably more erudite and ,characteristically, more ludicrous response - oil bonds issued by the UPA regime are the villain. Having to shell out ₹9990 cr annually on that score is a severely debilitating budgetary constraint. In FY21 the incremental accrual from Central excise on fuel alone was 88% ; for the calendar year 2021 thus far ₹3.35 lac crs have already flowed into Centre’s coffers. Indeed, servicing ₹9990 crs out of it is stressful ,to put it mildly. More is spent directly, indirectly on the personal publicity of PM alone.
Fuel price hikes have a cascading effect on prices all around, not the least on daily consumables. A financially weak person may not own a car but he uses public transport and that is not insulated from fuel price hikes. Even buses on brand new ‘miraging’ highways hike their fares in tandem with fuel price rises. The transporter benefits and the passenger loses out. To the young man glistening highways represent savings and conveniences to be paid for with higher fuel prices and in the bargain to sate patriotic urges. But to the poor the equivalent of 60% tax on pump prices is crippling. For instance, not a little of the leap in cooking oil prices from ₹100 to ₹200 per litre is attributable to fuel price hike. An indirect tax is inherently regressive. A well to do person easily absorbs it as it forms a smaller proportion of his large income. For the poor it entails a disproportionately higher outlay.
Lest I sound like a sermonising armchair crusader let me narrate a real life, ‘witnessed’ incident. My part time maid works in three households (all within my locality ) earning ₹5000 a month. Before the Corona pandemic, a shared one-way auto ride from her home to my house costed ₹3, that amounted to a monthly transport bill of little less than 4% of her monthly wage. Now that the fare is ₹10 the bill has shot up to 12% of wage. That is how regressive an indirect tax can be. We had to partly compensate her by hiking her wage by ₹100. All the savings, except for time, that the young man waxed eloquent about go to him, while the hole in the pocket of the bus rider only gets bigger. And about time, the poor have all the time in the world, more so when quite a number of them are jobless.
I don’t want to belittle any viewpoint, only to bare, firstly, the ‘mirchi’ in the sauce served ,with not a little insouciance, in media, on public platforms, rationalising the unabated fuel and cooking gas price hikes ( ECI can help by preponing the announcement of election dates; elections, somehow, have a sobering impact on fuel prices). Secondly, to plead for a greater exhibition of public sensitivity towards the 90 cr economically weaker ‘Deshwasis’ whose standards of living must surely be deteriorating due to the snowballing effect of fuel price hikes on articles of their daily consumption.
Global Hunger Index :
2020 : India ranked 94
2021 : India ranks 101
Behind Bangladesh , Pakistan & Nepal
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