Unequal distribution of wealth on the rise in India: Sainath

Delivering his address at the 12th National Conference of All India Lawyers Union on Democracy, Sainath claimed that in democracy our imagination should not be curbed and free thinking should be promoted but there is very serious erosion of democratic values in the country. 

It is not just in the past two years but undermining of democratic process had begun from 1991 and it had also escalated recently. Within the secular forces the rationalist voices are curbed and the fundamental forces are seeing them as a threat. 

There is an interesting kind of alliance ruling the country. It is not just a socio-religious alliance but is a combination of economic-market fundamentals. In the data of Global Wealth Data Book prepared by Credit Suisse, by 2010, there were 388 dollar billionaires in the world who had wealth of half of the world’s population. 

In 2013, the number had decreased to 190, in 2014 it had decreased to 83 and by 2015 it was reduced to 62. In such an alarming situation, what kind of democracy can be expected in the present scenario questioned Sainath. 

In India, the situation is even more worse and the number of people possessing wealth is going down rapidly. The top 1 percentage of population owns 58.8 percentage of wealth and this number is way higher than USA where the top 1 percentage own 42 percentage of the wealth. 

Top 5 percentage of population owns 72 percentage and top 10 percentage of population owns well over 80 percentage of the resources. In most countries like Brazil and Venezuela the inequality in wealth distribution was reduced to some extent where as in India the growth of unequal distribution of wealth is the highest in the past 15 years. 

The condition of bottom 30 percentage is becoming increasingly pathetic. The bottom most 10 percentage of the population owns -0.7 percentage of the wealth which means they own more credits and loans than their properties. 

The next 10 percentage from the bottom owns 0.2 percentage of the wealth and the next 10 percentage owns 0.5 percentage of wealth. When the bottom 30  percentage of people are combined they own no property for themselves.  

But one of the major blows of democracy is the number of crorepathis in the Parliament. In 2014, electoral affidavit system was introduced and the contesting candidates had to declare their assets which will not be cross checked.   

As per 2004, 32 percentage of MPs were crorepathis and the numbers increased to 53 percentage in 2009. By 2014 82 percentage of MPs were crorepathis. How will this 82 percentage represent the bottom 30 percentage of population who own nothing. “Elections are all about management and right to vote for crorepathis” said Sainath. 

He also criticised the demonetisation measure of the government and claimed that the rural economy is the worst affected due to this. Agricultural labourers were not given wages as small farmers had no cash to pay. Yet the labourers work based on trust and confidence that they would get money soon. 

The small farmer in turn buys agricultural products based on trust from the local trader and the trader too does business by trusting the farmer. The local trader gets products from the wholesale trader and the trader too does the business based on the faith. 

Now all the people in the system are made debtors and if there is a collapse all the sections would be affected, claimed Sainath.