Chapter 2
Who created poverty?
Poverty is not natural.
Poverty is not created by one person but a small group of people called the elite.
Every society has enough resources and wealth for their citizen to live in comfort. But yet many countries have very large population of poor.
In poor countries like India Poverty is created and sustained by denying access to Money to the majority of the people. Those who produce wealth are allowed to have too little and those who produce no tangible products and services corner the nation’s wealth.
The root for poverty in India can be traced to:
(1) In the distance past, India was ruled by invaders. They cornered the nation’s wealth with the help of Elite from the same soil but owed their allegiance to alien rulers. Both shared the wealth that was cornered by alien rulers.
(2) The wealth was created using the natural resources of this country and wages to the citizen. But the wealth was shared with Elite alone and bulk of it was siphoned-off by the rulers to their own country .
Who controls ?
Every country in the world a small population control both the Government and the Money. It is true of India also.
This can be learnt from the internet hosted news items that:
1. UK announced that India has become the third largest source of FDI for them .
2. India is the fourth largest investor in USA.
3. The industrialist invest in large properties in other countries with wealth siphoned out of India.
4. A promoter of a medium sizes software company bought properties in 42 countries.
The wealth generated move out of the country in more ways both legeally and illegally.
Even when money comes in (through round tripiing in Havala route) the provision is made to take the wealth out of the country.
The Stock markets like institutions, P Note types of instruments and Hawala Trading like practices, help the free movement of wealth from India.
The most important among the reasons for poverty
(3) One of the important responsibility of the democratic Government is to distribute the nation’s wealth equitably across the citizen. Economic theories suggest an 80:20 Formula
This is because, every citizen contribute to creating wealth. But, when it comes to wealth distribution, Common man, the 80% of the population have to depend on labour and wages only.
With changes in technology, there are lesser employment avenues and more people are unemployed.
is the continuation of the practice that was followed by invaders that (1) Wealth share for Elite and Wages for common man is the major contributor to poverty.
How can we know that?
Year after year the gap between Rich and poor increasing.
Europe has less poverty
One would find that those countries that colonised other societies have less poor among their citizen than their colonies.
Because they governments shared the wealth through the 80: 20 formula where as the citizen of the colonies were eligible for wages only. But the rulers of most countries that were colonies, continue the economic policies that were followed by aggressors.
Broken Promise
It can be said that India won the freedom from British after a long struggle. Many sacrificed their lives.
Leaders exhorted the poor citizen to sacrifice and fight for freedom. But, post freedom, the wealth of the nation continued to be shared between the elite in the society. The common man continues to drift more and more towards poverty.
It is interesting to note that such an even of betrayal is not new and has a parallel to an episode in the distant past and found in many Puranas and the epic Mahabharatha.
Churning the Ocean of Milk
(Demigods & demons churning Ocean of Milk for extracting Amrit)!
The puranas as described as a celestial event follows. This has several parallels to earthly events.
The Demigods realised that they cannot churn the ocean of milk to obtain Amrit (Nectar) by their efforts alone. They needed the demons to join their effort to succeed. They promised a share of the Amrit. After the Amrit was found they did not want to share it with them as promised.
Amrit was finally consumed by demigods only.
It is not clear what was the intention of the author in telling this story but most political leaders who run the counties have taken a lesson from it.
The lesson is that you can make a deal and the promise can be Broken after the job is done.
In any society there are two groups of people.
(1) Rich and powerful called elite comparable to Demigods and
(2) the poor and Powerless known as Common man comparable to demons in the celestial world.
While in celestial world the issue was Amrit (Nectar).
Leaders Promised Prosperity
Bulk of the Indians are and were poor from over 1000 years. During the last two hundred years, the poor in India has become poorer than ever before.
Poverty, corruption and very low Knowledge levels (lack-of ability to Learn & Think) are interconnected.
Leaders - Elite - Prospered
During the independence struggle, the leaders exhorted the poor, the common man, to take part in Independence struggle.
They promised that, after independence, every one of them will live like kings!
There were the Elites standing by British. when common man fought for freedom.
But, alas, after Independence the fruits of freedom were shared between Leaders & Elite. Nothing changed on ground, for the poor. The common man had to depend of Cooly or Wages!
The poor continues to became poorer year after year.
On the average, every citizen is creating a wealth equivalent to Rs 100,000 per year.
(An economic report in internet quantifies as how the nation’s wealth gets distributed among Indian citizen: There are 84 billionaires in India, and the own a wealth of $248 billion, collectively.
It can be seen from various economic reports the fact that a mere 56 people in India own wealth as much as what 70% of common man own today. This gap is widening year after year.
(This Accounts for one twelfth of India’s wealth)
(4) Ideally there should not be any poverty. Because it is the poor who generates the wealth in any country. (In India, on the average, each person generates a wealth of Rs 100,000.
(5) Every one (Except the men-of-knowledge) keep chasing money. Some use legal and illegal ways to get money. (Note: Not that all the legal ways are fair and just).
Everyone is successful in grabbing money to different extents. It is like a Marathon run. Several people run but Very few reach their goal.
Most people drop-off along the way at various points.
Marathon is a matter of Physical endurance. With marathon chasing money, success in money hunt is a matter of Mind, governed by learning abilities and thinking skills.
(Read the e-book titled, Knowledge. Go, get it).
One more reason that not many aware of:
(An economic report in internet quantifies as how the nation’s wealth gets distributed among Indian citizen: There are 84 billionaires in India, and the own a wealth of $248 billion, collectively.
It can be seen from various economic reports the fact that a mere 56 people in India own wealth as much as what 70% of common man own today. This gap is widening year after year.
(This Accounts for one twelfth of India’s wealth)
How is that possible?
The RBI Annual Report
Reading the annual report of Reserve Bank of India, we would know that Rs 80,000 Lakh Crore of money is lent to various sectors of Economy, including Agriculture Industry and common man through the financial system, the banks.
Theoretically, it is the reserve bank that control that huge money.
Practically a minister of state in finance ministry appoints some of the directors on the board of banks. Those who follow the news on corruption would remember how a family auditor of a minister was made a director in the bank and he in turn showered favours ( liberal and Low interest loan) to family members of the minister.
There is no punishment to loss made by wrong decisions. So the bank funds flow to big and powerful in the society and become NPA.
Several lakh Crores of public money lent to corporate families written off Every year / periodically.
How this money is spent by RBI /Government
The GDP which is nearly ten times the annual budget of the ets into the Banks. Who all have the access to the money
(A) In the past six decades common man is charged huge interest on bank barrowing and any default in payment and interest in time, the mortgaged wealth will be confiscated auctioned and banks realized their loan amount.
(B) Rs 66000 Crores money lent to farmers have been waived in sixty most funds with Industry, running to several lakhs of Crores are periodically written off as NPA by various banks.
The Dividend that Government of India received recently is for the Rs 80,000 Lakh Crore is a mere Rs 10,000 Crores.
If the industry mainly run by some 400 families enjoys the entire nation’s wealth.
How much interest paid by them?
Even, an average 1% interest were received from them, it will be a mind boggling Rs 800 Lakh Crores. One year interest income will be the tax income of 40 years.
This explains the poor-rich gap, Poverty among common man.