Prime Minister Narendra Modi had aimed at Opposition parties such as the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) when he fired his ‘revadi (freebie) culture’ salvo at governments, little expecting it would boomerang on him. After all, his own government distributes ‘freebies’ — cash transfers to farmers, a house, a toilet, gas cylinders, free rations, and so on.
The Supreme Court made it worse for him. The court said all parties distributed ‘freebies’ and want the practice to continue. It has suggested setting up a committee to study the issue and recommend measures to regulate it. It has also said it wants to set up a three-judge bench on the matter.
However, scepticism runs deep about any committee’s ability to help put an end to freebies because every political party is going to say, “What other parties give are freebies…what we give are not freebies.” Already, the BJP is arguing that while Opposition governments’ schemes have no productive value, the Modi government’s schemes have productive values. The DMK is saying even a television set has “productive value” because it adds to poor women’s empowerment as they do not have to go to others’ homes to watch TV and thus gain self-respect as well as more information about the world. It is obviously not going to be easy for the committee to define what is a ‘freebie’ and what is not.
The committee would also face a high territorial wall in defining a freebie because the elected governments will assert their sovereignty in designing schemes. The committee will have no authority to say a scheme has productive value or not. It can only say a scheme is right if the government can afford it and wrong if it cannot. Its definition of a freebie is going to be determined by the government’s financial capability. At best therefore, any committee on the matter might end up recommending stricter rules for enforcing fiscal prudence to curb ‘profligacy’.
Will it curb profligacy? Will it end the ‘revadi culture’? No. Because no political party, including the BJP, wants to attack the root of the problem.
There are two sets of actors in the revadi culture: the political parties and the target sections. The political parties distribute revadi to get the votes of the target sections. Why are people willing to barter their political choice for freebies? Because they do not have a decent income to fulfill their family’s needs and make savings to live with respect, dignity and financial security. Do the upper and middle classes want freebies? No. They might even feel insulted by a suggestion of it.
The revadi culture exists because poverty exists, and poverty exists because the government’s economic policy has delivered growth to the economy but not to the large masses of people.
More than 75 per cent of the country’s farmers own less than a hectare (2.47 acres). They supplement their income from small fields by working as labourers. That is a huge part of the population. There are more than 110 million beneficiaries under the PM Kisan-Samman Yojana. Of them, 82.5 million farmer households (75 per cent) supplement their farm income with wage labour. That translates to 82.5 x 4 = 330 million Indians (taking 4 members to a family on average).
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These 330 million Indians live extremely vulnerable lives. If the crop fails in one season for any reason, they slide into poverty. If even one working male of the family suffers long illness or remains unpaid for his labour for months, the family has to live hand-to-mouth. For lack of food and nutrition, other members might fall ill, and that means greater misery. Can we fault these 330 million Indians for seeking revadi?
The conventional wisdom of economists is that if the surplus labour in agriculture moved to non-farm employment, it would bring about economic growth and higher wages and better living conditions for workers. Though economic growth has taken place, the wages and living conditions of workers have not improved. Most urban workers (for example, gig workers) have casual, low-wage jobs, with no paid leave, medical reimbursement, safety, accident insurance, provident fund or pension. Can we fault them for trading their votes for revadi?
The country’s unemployment rate has remained 7-8 per cent in the past eight years. Will the Prime Minister please tell us how many millions lost jobs, especially in the informal sector, due to demonetisation? Will he please tell us how many more millions lost jobs and wages due to the sudden nation-wide lockdown with four-hour notice? In June 2022, as many as 44 per cent of the country’s youth (20-24 age group) were jobless. That means 150 million youth. About 10 million workers who were laid off by the manufacturing sector during the pandemic have not been taken back. Out of 220 million persons who applied for central government jobs in the past eight years, less than 1 million (722,000) got jobs. Can we fault the tens of millions of jobless Indians if they desperately seek revadi and are ready to sell their votes for them?
The guilt for promoting the ‘revadi culture’ lies with the Prime Minister, the BJP, and all other political parties. They have failed to give the country an economic policy that delivers quality job growth along with economic growth. It is their collective failure. It is because they have failed to provide quality employment to large masses of people that they distribute revadi to them – perhaps to hide their guilt or to make up for it, perhaps merely to prevent the poor from rising up in revolt.
The onus to end the ‘revadi culture’ also lies on Prime Minister Modi, the BJP and the other parties. They have to rewrite the country’s economic policy to provide jobs with decent incomes to a large part of the population. That should be the next set of reforms the country must contemplate, design and implement. If people have good income and savings, they would stop seeking revadi, the revadi-for-vote market would shut down, and democracy would become freer and stronger.
(The writer is an independent journalist and the author of ‘Against the Few: Struggles of India’s Rural Poor’)