DEMONETISATION: THE POOR DON’T MATTER EXCEPT TO BUY VOTES
Pratap Antony
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed. Everybody knows that the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost. Everybody knows the fight was fixed: the poor stay poor, the rich get rich. That’s how it goes. Everybody knows. Leonard Cohen.
Everybody knows that the elected party governing India wants to decimate all opposition parties and be the only party to ‘Rule’ India.
Everybody knows that the party that won the election and is governing the country wants to have a complete majority in the upper house where a few regional parties are holding onto their seats and being a healthy opposition.
Everybody knows that all political parties run on cash funds; cash that is collected for party use and distributed for party use.
Everybody knows that political parties, all political parties, are cash rich. And so everybody knows that the bigger the party is, the more funds it has. And everybody knows that cash-rich parties buy favours from the electorate with the huge cash stocks at their disposal.
Everybody knows that money held by political parties in every state is at its peak before elections. And everybody knows that voters are paid to vote for a particular party.
Everybody knows that the time when a voter was paid Rs. 200/- is over. They are now paid Rs. 500/- and Rs. 1000/-
Everyone knows that the demonetising of the Rs. 500/- and Rs.1000/- notes is causing so much chaos in the country, with people standing in queues at banks to change their meagre amounts of Rs.500/- and Rs.1000/- notes; these denominations which overnight have been tainted and called black money.
Everybody knows that the retail market and poor people have been hit the hardest by this move to suddenly and secretly demonetise these notes.
Everybody knows that rural India has been brought to a standstill without cash to pay for its regular wants and needs.
Everybody knows that farmers are going to the market to sell their produce, but no one is buying because they don’t have the money to pay. And everybody knows that farmers are not able to buy supplies for further cultivation.
Everybody knows that 700000 trucks carrying goods and essential supplies to the country are at a standstill on the road for lack of money.
Everybody knows that students who are ATM dependent, cannot pay for their food and snacks because the ATMs were dry.
Everybody knows that weddings and funerals have been jammed due to lack of currency.
Everybody knows that people are dying of shock to find themselves in this precarious position. And everybody knows that people are dying of anxiety while standing in queues at their banks.
Everybody knows that the demonetisation has affected the poor rather than the rich.
Everybody knows that the poor don’t matter. And everybody knows that the poor do not have a voice.
Everybody knows that the government doesn’t care about the poor, because they are the government for the elite.
Everybody knows that to the government and politicians, the poor do not matter except when there are elections. That’s when cash is paid to the poor to buy their votes.
Everybody knows that political parties (national or regional) cannot admit to collecting and disbursing cash during elections, or to having large stocks of money. So everybody knows why political parties are not admitting to the real reasons of their opposition of the demonetisation.
Everybody knows, especially other political parties, that the party governing the country has taken care of their own funds before the demonetisation.
Everyone knows that the elections in UP are at a critical stage, when cash and Rs500/- and Rs. 1000/- notes are most required by political parties.
Everybody therefore knows that the demonetisation has not been done to recover so-called ‘black money’ but to win an approaching election in UP and other states where the elected party in government at the centre is not in power, by starving regional political parties that have the potential to win in their States of cash funds to conduct the elections, thereby getting more seats in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house.
Everybody knows that the government, and the party in power, is only in the game to win elections and accrue more power.
Everybody knows how cold, callous and unsympathetic the government -and the party in power is to the plight of the common man and to the poor.
Everybody knows that this government doesn’t care about the poor; it only cares about winning elections.
That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.
The author is a passive activist/active pacifist, freelance thinker and writer.
November 18, 2016
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