Making of a migrant
Making of Migrant
Covid19 exposed the real underbelly of India which is not politics / bureaucracy but rather its treatment of its own third grade citizens that is migrant workers. Millions of Indians went back back home on foot, in trucks, in containers or in cement mixers.
But the key issue is not that they went back home in a destitute manner. Key issue is why million of Indians leave their village at first place and travel 1000 kms to work at minimum wages and live forever in abject poverty at a place which is 1000s km away from their home and is forever hostile and abusive.
The answer is simple. In India, there is systematic transfer of wealth from villages to cities or from poor to elites. This systematic transfer of wealth - planned by policy institutes, enforced by State ( Indian Govt), lapped by rent collectors and enjoyed by great Indian middle class, has ensured that poor remain poor and keep on feeding all - policy institutes, Govt, Rent seekers, Middle class.
It is not that this systematic transfer of wealth started in 1914, or 1947. It has been going for a long period. In whole word, western world acquired wealth or rather transferred the wealth through colonisation. In every country, kingdoms transfer wealth from peasants like this.
This wealth transfer stopped with advent of democracy. However in India, post independence, it just got more brazen and sophisticated. PPP models were designed to transfer wealth with the might of state to private parties from larger powerless public.
Before that self righteous of you jump and blame this party, that party or capitalism or socialism, look at mirror. Look at people around you. if you are reading this on twitter in English at a computing device, you have also enjoyed the fruits of this loot and have ben recipient of this systematic transfer of wealth.
So how this systematic wealth transfer happens. The three broad areas where rural india or rather majority of India had edge were 1. Land, 2. Agriculture 3. Natural Resources. However despite having these advantages, rural India ultimately lost out through interesting intervention by State.
Land - Land is most interesting part and probably most brutal and fastest wealth transfer from individual to State and its friends ie rent seekers. Every talk of job creation, industrialisation starts with land acquisition or rather lack of easy land acquisition laws. And hence whenever a state talks of industrialisation and attracting capital for creating jobs, they only talk of availability of land and fight with each other to provide land for peanuts to cash rich corporates. And when we think of this buyers of land, images of black money, crooked real estate developers, land sharks, corrupt politicians etc come to mind. Nothing can be farther from the naked reality.
All across globe, companies avoid buying land or offices and always go for lease route as they do not wish to block precious capital in a non productive assets. Interestingly corporate India which followed modern western management theories to hilt whether its compensation to management, esops to employees or hiring and firing of workers, chains its tracks when it comes to buying of land. Probably the reason is that as India is probably the only country in the world where it takes land from its rightful owner at pittance and give it to wealthy companies for a pittance.
So who are land grabbers, Contrary to popular belief, it is not the large industrial house, ie automobiles, minings, manufacturing, or property developers who are busy land grabbing. It is almost everybody or rather who’s who of India who try their best to do land grab.
Think of some of the cleanest or rather companies with finest corporate governance. Indian mega IT companies who have a name in the world for their ethics, equality and shining campuses. IT companies with no plant and machinery but only people working on computers but that does not stop them from acquiring land at breathtaking speed. Each of Indian IT company owns 1000s of acres of land bought at pittance ( 9 lakh an acre in main cities, taking subsidy of 100s of crores to buy land again at a pittance). And who are the beneficiary of this huge wealth transfer? Management, employees, esop holders !
All these land come from poor farmers, small city dwellers who are forced to sell their land and then become small time vendors or employees and over a period of time gets into poverty. If the finest of Corporate India is busy land amassing without any need then what abut other? Question is who will say no if you can garner all real estate ( mind the word - “real”) for free!
But if land is sharp and fastest way to do wealth transfer, the others ie Agriculture and natural resources are other interesting ways of wealth transfer which drains poor slowly and transfer wealth to city folks.
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