Giving Doles - a boon or a bane?

I was elated to receive the news of my promotion in late 1982. Thanks to Mrs. Gandhi’s Bank nationalization, hundreds of youngsters like me not only had a job but also had a rare opportunity to be of service to people. The euphoria was, however, very short lived. A transfer order followed, posting me as a branch manager to a rural branch in Tamilnadu. While the challenge of managing a branch independently excited me, having lived all my life in an urban area, the prospect of living in a rural village with a young family was not appealing. However, as luck would have it, I was permitted to stay in a big town closer to the village and operate. This gave me some relief. However, when I say that those 18 months of work in the rural village was an experience of a life time, I am not exaggerating even one bit.

Unless you live in a village, you don’t understand the caste equations and the dynamics which the politicians seem to be fully aware of. Having been brought up in a house with an egalitarian mindset in a city, caste and religion were not even talked about in our house. But what I saw in the village was just the opposite. Everything revolved around caste which seemed quite incredible. To cite an example of the prevailing situation, let me share an instance. After having my lunch, I always walked across to a petty shop, managed by an old lady, to have a banana. I used to call the old lady “Patti” meaning grandma as she was very old. Once my landlord came along with me and when he saw me calling her thus, he gave me a bewildered look and said, “Why are you calling her Patti? You are a Brahmin and she is an AD.” Innocently I asked him what is “AD?” He replied it stands for Adi Dravidar meaning that they were Dalits! I was stunned! I asked him where caste comes into this whole transaction. After all she is like my grandma in terms of age and what is wrong in my calling her thus? It was his turn to look puzzled though he had no answer.

Caste apart, the inequality was very stark too. There were farmers who lived in opulence owning property in acres living in farm houses with all the facilities – tractors, bikes, cars et al. On the other side were the Dalits who lived on other side of the village totally shunned by the upper caste. There were landless labourers too getting a pittance as wages after toiling hard for a full day in the hot sun. And women were paid less for the same work!  I was aghast when I knew the farmers got very little after toiling hard for almost a year when they tried to sell their produce in the market. The middlemen pocketed most of the money while the farmers got very little for all their hard work. The rural economy was pathetic! Taxes were unheard of in those places! I learned a lot of agriculture and its economics during those eventful days.

Those were the days of Congress regime when the minister of state for finance Mr. Janardhan Poojary was at his peak. He used to invite Bank managers to public meetings where borrowers were present and literally pulled up the manager for not granting loans to the public in full view of the public gathering. Managers were portrayed as villains in these tamasha euphemistically called “Loan Melas”. While I did not have a firsthand experience of such a circus, it was the talk of the town those days. There was pressure on all managers to give loans especially under the 20 point programme of Mrs. Gandhi and schemes like Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) where the poorest of poor were given loans at 4% interest with subsidy as high as 50% of the loan to the SC/ST beneficiaries.

I was young, idealistic and in all earnestness, I wanted to implement the Government’s programme in a village that had been adopted by my branch. In this village most of the residents belonged to SC/ST. The men folk were weavers. It was the practice there that these weavers wove mats for a master weaver. The master weaver always advances a fairly large sum to these weavers so that they work for them regularly. I felt that we would help augment their incomes by sanctioning loans for the women folk to buy milch buffaloes. By selling this milk to the nearby cooperative milk society, they would be able to increase their monthly income by about 400-500 rupees (which was a good sum those days) based on the milk output. I spoke to them and all the women got the form approved by the Block Development officer (BDO). I was told that to get this subsidy of almost 1500/= for a loan of Rs. 3000/=, they had to spend at least spend Rs. 1000/= as bribes to the VAO, BDO etc., I couldn’t do much about it.

Being very earnest and sincere, I took the local veterinarian with me to a market about 60 kms away, identified good milk yielding buffaloes, about 30 of them, completed all formalities and distributed these animals to the respective beneficiaries – all of them women. I ensured that the loan was utilized for the purpose for which it was sanctioned. I had also made arrangements with a local milk society to collect the milk on a daily basis and the villagers were also paid based on the fat content of the milk which was measured using a lactometer.

I had a sense of pride that I could do something for this socially and economically weaker section of society. I spent a lot of time with them educating them about importance of savings, family planning (yes, family planning!) educating their children etc., My colleagues at the branch used to make fun of me saying that had I chosen to stand for elections in that area, I would have won hands down. Both DMK and the ADMK councilors of the area were my supporters too. As for caste, I was accepted by every community as being one of their own!

All was well with the world for a month. Then one fine morning the master weavers turned up to the Branch and in a chorus said “Sir, you have totally ruined our business!’ I was nonplussed as I had nothing to do with their business! Then they explained that the weavers, for whose wives I had given a loan to buy buffaloes, were not turning up for work. Instead, they were drinking with the extra money that their womenfolk brought and failed to turn up for work. Once again I made a visit and gave them a big lecture about the evils of drinking and the need to save money. It was a sight to see – I was seated in a cot that you usually see in such small huts and the villagers used to either sit down or stand. There were no mobile phones those days to take selfies and post it in FB! The situation improved but a new problem cropped up soon enough. The villagers complained that the milk society was adulterating their milk with water to lower the fat content and they were being paid less because they were Dalits. I picked up a fight with the President of the society and threatened to make a complaint to the collector that he was harassing Dalits which was a criminal offence. He also fell in line. To the villagers’ credit, they were paying their dues very regularly.

I was transferred to another branch and the whole village saw me off. I have never again seen such love and affection for a person who only did what he was supposed to do. Even after 20 years of my leaving the branch, people were still enquiring about me! Be that as it may, a few months after I left the place, I ran into my old colleague. What he told me shocked me. He said none of the villagers for whom I had toiled to give these buffalo loans were repaying and they were back to their old ways. I felt really sad but it was a lesson for me that I will never forget. More of it a little later.

Now let us look at the famous NYAY scheme that the Congress announced in their election manifesto. Much has been said and written by people more erudite than me and in the know of things. But pointing out to a few contradictions will not be out of place. The economists who were “consulted” like Mr. Raghuram Rajan (RR) and Mr. Abhijeet Banerjee (AB) say that many subsidies have to go and perhaps the taxes may have to be increased. The inflation will also go up. Mr. Sam Pitroda, the man who has been taking Mr. Rahul Gandhi around and parades him before the public in overseas locations, says that the middle class should not be selfish and should be prepared to dish out more taxes etc. To cap all these, I saw the interview by Ms. Barkha Dutt (BD), with the master himself – with Mr. P Chidambaram (PC) – yesterday. It was a classic interview which the crass may choose to call it bullshit while the more urbane folks of the likes of Mr. Shashi Tharoor may call it obfuscation. PC says this scheme will motivate people to try other things – what and how is not clear. To a question as to what would finance this as this is 1.8% of GDP, PC disagrees saying that the denominator is not constant meaning the GDP will grow and the scheme when implemented fully over the next 5 years will not be that high. She then quotes RR and AB saying that they have stated that some subsidies have to go and that Congress has not mentioned them in the manifesto. PC haughtily replies that she has to take time out to read the manifesto in greater detail. This is only a manifesto and once they are in government a design team would be formed – and he doesn’t know who would be there – would deliberate and come out with specifics learning lessons from the ground looking at such schemes from other countries etc.

On her further insistence about subsidies he cooly responds saying that there are over 800 subsidies, some even dating back to 100 years and he is not sure which ones would go, despite BD stating that RR said so. My question is PC was in government and FM to boot, why did they not rationalize subsidies then? Instead of a simple yes and getting on with the interview, he goes about beating around the bush circumventing the issue. He also has the audacity to say that this is only a manifesto and not a cabinet paper! The next question was on the source of funds and would there be a tax increase. PC’s answer is a classic - PC at his best. He said that the middle class is a child of India’s liberalization which was created by the congress party and their policies. So Mr. PC, what? He also says each economist has his own way of raising resources and that they would not burden the middle class (with taxes I presume!). He nonchalantly asks her to wait till they come to the form the government! When asked about India’s inequality, PC says with disdain that India’s prosperity is unequally and unfairly shared and goes on to cite Thomas Piketty (The Economics of Inequality). When BD says that Piketty has recommended inheritance tax to punish the rich, PC says he does not endorse Piketty’s recommendations! Being an articulate man, PC has given nothing away during the entire interview leaving the listeners with the same questions that they started with!   

Now coming back to my experience narrated earlier, I strongly believe that you cannot give doles to people and make them come out of poverty. This needs enormous individual efforts and an effort by the government to change the mindset of these poor people. Unless a person wants to change and improve, no force on earth can make him / her do it. You can take a horse to the pond, but cannot make it drink. In psychology it is called an ‘internal locus of control’. So do we twiddle our thumbs and watch it all unfold? Absolutely not.

They need education, primary health, skill development, better means of agricultural production, sanitation, housing, social equality, self-belief that they can earn and live with dignity and an overall feeling of subjective well being. Any well meaning government should start investing in these areas and look at long term benefits rather than short term political gains. Why are the creamy layers of the various reserved categories still enjoying all the benefits denying these fruits to other deserving people? There has to be a comprehensive reform to end all this and look at alleviating poverty. We have tried out giving doles and writing off loans for decades without any desired result!

It needs investment in a number of areas that are not even talked about today. Doles are being given in other countries but only as a temporary respite from loss of jobs. It is not a permanent cure for a chronic problem. In my experience with the villagers, the government was supportive with subsidy, the Bank had implemented it with dedication but it still failed because the people were not motivated enough to grow and move on. The motivation that PC so eloquently talked about will not come just like that after seeing a paltry sum of Rs. 6,000/=. They would only spend it on consumption of white goods and other wasteful expenditure. Poverty alleviation needs much more and these schemes will only create a generation of alms seekers.

In my humble opinion, NYAY is conceptually flawed and the efficacy of the scheme is also questionable based on my experience. In addition, it also appears to be detrimental to the overall economy of the country. It is for people to decide if this is going to be a game changer or a last ditch effort by the Congress to woo voters.