Feudal mindsets

Saharashri ka sandesh deshvasiyon ke naam. This is what I read on the Sahara Samay channel while Subroto Roy was addressing a self discovery speech. For a moment, I felt I was listening to an address from the Indian prime minister or the President. Subroto may be Almighty to his employees, not to me. Why on earth should he address me? And that too from a feudal mindset and a feudalistic surrounding. The entire episode looked like a king addressing to his subjects. The speech was full of information about projects that he termed as making India from a developing nation to a developed nation. Nothing could have been more disgusting for me than to listen to this bluffing. This precisely means that he is earning nothing and dedicates the entire profit for the benefit of the nation. Sahara is India and India is Sahara is what I should understand from this speech.
Someone remarked to me that America is a rich nation with poor people while India is a poor nation with rich people. Behind India’s woes and worries, people like Roy made merry making. In what is now called para banking, he established offices to collect money from gullible investors to create a big conglomerate. Even the government purchased land from farmers and sold it to him to make valleys and housing complexes. So much so that each politician want to see their faces with this person. Even music albums immortalized his rags to riches story. Fine. But why should I be bothered? I have no interest in listening to a person who may or may appear in public just because a magazine questioned his existence.
This is what is keeping India away from developing into a nation with sensitivity. In my opinion, India is still a theoretic state in the sense that it has little feeling towards its people. None of the policies are framed keeping in mind its people. One of the latest example is the WTO agreement that Kamal Nath has entered into making drugs unaffordable for Indians. We cared less to see our own people and instead obliged to international commitments. People in India starve while we splurge billions in defence expenditure in the name of protecting the country we care little about protecting its people. Our enemy is Pakistan while we have entered into friendly pact with poverty, malnutrition, starvation, female infanticide and nepotism. What will you do protecting a country of malnourished citizens?
Our government servants act as if they own the country. They are little or no different to people like Roy. While they rule the kingdom they are designated, business conglomerates rule the entire nation. They have say in each budget. The finance minister calls for meeting of CII, FICCI and chambers of commerce to discuss what they expect from the budget. If their needs are not fulfilled, they make a big hue and cry. No finance minister has ever cared to call a poor guy in a remote place as to what they need. If at all he has done, the response would have been very simple. They need their daily wages so that they can survive and look after their families. Their ambitions and aspirations are simple yet never fulfilled. Our industry’s aspirations are a never ending process. The more you accede to them, the more they demand. They need tax holidays to open their business. But these same tax holidays are not translated into betterment of people.
Yes, logically, the business houses do business for profits. Their primary concern is making profit and their accountability is towards their shareholders. But then they should do business in the same way as a tribal in Panchmahal work in any construction site in the country. They should not plead to the government for land on lease which can next be compared to free land, tax holidays, tax exemptions, tax evasions, voluntary disclosure of evaded income, excise exemptions and the list is endless.
This is exactly how businessmen like Roy or Ambani are doing the business. No single business house can claim to be doing business without government doles. They have high connections to reach the government whereas the poor laborers have little idea how to reach even their legislator.
So coming to Roy’s address, the question again props up as to who he called as ‘deshvasiyon’.

Pix (C) Binu Alex