Costly castaways of Nehruvian socialism

That this column is not dedicated to Nehruvian socialism needs no reiteration, no reminders. In fact, it so clearly is not, that your humble columnist is routinely accosted by total strangers who consider it their life’s mission to spit accusations in my poor, humble face. Rightist, Pro-American Anti-national, Anti-poor and even, from time to time although less these days, that ancient Nehruvian-socialist curse: CIA agent. I have to tell you that these imprecations bother me not one bit. My usual response is to smile genially back at my attackers and remind them politely that the Cold War is over and that it was communism which lost. Nehruvian-socialists tend to be humourless, jholewala (cloth bag on grubby khadi shoulder) types so it’s easy to get under their skin and have some fun doing it. But since I am given, in those brief moments between being attacked by Leftists and writing columns, to a degree of introspection, I often reflect on why I am anti-socialist. The reasons I come up with are usually too complicated and abstract to explain in 850 words but last week I came across a concrete example of exactly what it is that Nehruvian socialism has done to our country that annoys me so much. It came in the form of the latest list of demands that our honourable members of Parliament have put forth in order to improve their standards.

For starters our MPs want their salaries doubled. At Rs 1,500 a month, they earn less than domestic servants so we cannot grudge them this little demand. In fact, we should pay them a lot more but this is not their real demand. Their real demands come in the perks they are asking for because this is the socialist way. Part of the pretense and hypocrisy of what we consider socialism is that you appear to be earning nothing at all, a mere pittance, while at the same time obtaining for yourself a long list of perks and privileges that amount to a massive tax fiddle. So, for instance, our MPs want their constituency allowance doubled to Rs 6,000 a month, their supply of free electricity and water to double to 14,400 units, their office allowance to be raised from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,500 and their daily allowance to go up from Rs 200 to Rs 300. They also want their free air tickets, for MP and spouse, to go up from 28 to 32 with family members being allowed to travel free as well. Wait, that isn’t all. They want their free telephone calls to go up from 50,000 to 1,00,000 and they want car loans for diesel cars at 5-per-cent rate of interest.

The Business Standard calculates that when you add free housing to this an MP wil cost taxpayers anything just to Rs 1 lakh a month. I beg to differ for the simple reason that the rent of a small flat in Lutyens’ Delhi is well over Rs 1 lakh a month. Yet they love reminding anyone who cares to listen that they earn much less than MPs anywhere else in the world. This is not true. In other, non-socialist countries, MPs do not get free housing, electricity, water or air travel and if we are truly moving towards a market economy it is more than time that our MPs earned larger salaries, paid tax on them like the rest of us do, and stopped demanding free perks and privileges. Why should they get anything that you and I are not entitled to? Surely, it is only when they live exactly like you and I, face the same problems with electricity and telephone bills that they will realise that the so-called benefits of socialism have really not trickled down to anyone outside our political and bureaucratic elite.

This elite has become so fat with perks and privileges that it has become almost feudal in its approach to what it can get free from the Indian state. So, in states like Uttar Pradesh it is taken for granted that if you have been chief minister once, you are entitled to a free house (usually mansion) for life. In Delhi we now have the additional problem of housing former prime ministers and their families and, at the rate prime ministers come and go these days, we will eventually have to hand the whole of Lutyens’ Delhi over to this requirement. And, we may need another whole city to house others (T.N. Seshan, Mrs Robert Vadra) who also believe that socialism entitles them to live off the fat of the land for ever for `security reasons’. Do you see why I am not a Nehruvian socialist and why I am convinced that we can no longer afford this economic model.