People's Democracy

Mind of the State

G Mamatha

AADMI ko gussa kyon aata hai? Babaji ka video dekhiye! Ek rupee mein! This advice might be apt for anybody who is angry after reading the recent comment made by our Rahul Baba. His comment about poverty or the definition of poverty he had propounded does not need even a rupee. It can be had for free. This should be highly appreciated because these days some of the meetings of our prime minister aspirants are being charged, even as low as Rs 5. So, this, coming at free of cost, is a relief for the hard-pressed. Enough of dilly-dallying; let us hear what was stated: “Poverty is just a state of mind. It does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty”. Babaji ki jai ho!

These are the words not coming from any ordinary person. These days some politicians are showing off their ignorance. It seems one Australian politician who wanted to contest the elections there thought that Islam is the name of a country and strongly stated that the policies of that country cannot be implementable in Australia. Of course, it is another matter that the concerned Australian politician was forced to drop out of the contest. Our Indian counterpart, is not a novice like that. He is indeed the vice-president of the oldest party in the country and is considered to be the number-two in the party, right after the party president, who incidentally happens to be his mother. If someone thinks that he got this post out of benevolence or as an act of charity, beware! How many times did he himself express against dynastic politics. He served the party long as a common party cadre, then as a general secretary who was in-charge of its student and youth wings and was credited with the democratisation of the organisation. More than all these, he travelled the length and breadth of the country, Bharat Darshan, to learn about the country and its people.

After a lengthy sojourn around the country, sleeping in the houses of the poor, dalits, adivasis and interacting with countless numbers of farmers, travelling on two-wheelers to meet the distressed, hearing the stories of the Kalavatis' and such other grass-root campaigns did he become the leader he is today. So as was recently declared by him, his “one and only political aim is that I want to tune my ears to the voice of the poor and the marginalised”. It is after such an effort of tuning that he defined poverty, from a personal, first-hand experience.

So, if somebody challenges this practical world view elucidated, think again. Forget Marx and his bunch or band of followers, who call themselves as Marxists or the economic intellectuals among this breed as Marxist economists. Even Adam Smith is an 'intellectual' and not a political worker who had experiences from the ground. So don't even think of quoting his definition of poverty. He might have defined it as “missing not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without”. The 'Father of Economics' is wrong and is complicating the issue – poverty is after all just a state of mind. You are poor because you think yourself to be poor. Or for our Rahulji, they might not be ‘creditable’ people worthy of ‘decency’.

Do not try even to quote Bharat Ratna, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. After all, was he not recently accused of being a leftist and what not by an 'eminent' editor. Of course, the editor in question is politically on the Right. Amartya Sen is wrong because, for him, “poverty is a standard at which one cannot achieve adequate participation in communal activities...and be free from public shame, from failure to satisfy conventions”.

When the Father of Economics himself is wrong, how can an ordinary Nobel laureate be right?

And when a Nobel laureate is wrong, how can few economists working in the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights be right? Naturally they are bound to falter in defining poverty. It is definitely wrong for them to state, without any knowledge that poverty is: “A human condition characterised by sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.”

Moreover, the prime minister of our country, himself another eminent economist, in his Independence Day address to the country, trying to put to rest all this controversy stated: “Measuring poverty is a difficult task. There are diverse views about what constitutes poverty. But whatever definition we may adopt, it cannot be denied that the pace of reduction in poverty has increased after 2004”. That's it!

On top of all this, we should not forget that we are living in India. In India, isn’t it wrong to openly criticise Gandhi? That too, a famous descendant from the family known for its sacrifices for the country and its people. You may not like the brand 'Gandhi' or may have reservations on how the present generations are using the surname. But you cannot ignore some comparisons.

Mahatma Gandhi, the first of the Gandhis to become famous in our country, before he entered the freedom struggle, toured the entire country to understand the country and its people. Now, the Congress vice-president too did it. Mahatma Gandhi, seeing the poverty all across the country, was disturbed and refused to wear anything else except a dhoti, 'as majority of the Indians around him were wearing'. Common, we cannot expect the scion to do the same now, though the majority of our people continue to wear the same ‘attire’ if you can call it as such!

It seems, long time back Mahatma Gandhi had stated this about those people who were spending a lot on their children's education amidst all round starvation, wherein millions were dying: “The golden rule to apply in all such cases is resolutely to refuse to have what millions cannot. This ability to refuse will not descend upon us all of a sudden. The first thing is to cultivate the mental attitude that we will not have possessions or facilities denied to millions, and the next immediate thing is to rearrange our lives as fast as possible in accordance with our mentality”. Here Mahatma Gandhi speaks about the 'state of mind' of the rich and wants it to be changed in tune with the existing ground realities. And importantly, he also wants the rich to 'rearrange' their 'lives as fast as possible' according to the reality around them.

Somewhere down the generations, these words might have got inverted. Now, it is the poor who have to remember that poverty is only just their state of mind, which needs to be changed so that they too can become rich. Planning Commission is poor in ideas, it thought of fudging the poverty line and statistics to make the poor rich. It has got a lot to learn. Moreover, this puts a cap on all the debate about meals for Rs 5, 12 or 20. This might be indeed the meaning of the caption, 'An idea can change a life'. Or is this a way for the UPA-2 to fulfill its poll promise of working towards the benefit of the aam aadmi? All you aam aadmis, you are no more poor, think big, you are rich! How long can you keep on thinking negatively? Be positive! That's it, you become rich, if you think.

Aha, now haven't you understood why Ambanis, Tatas and Birlas ask for concessions and why the government gives them so many tax concessions and rebates? It is because they do not consider themselves to be rich. Their mind thinks them to be still poor and makes them cry for concessions. Moreover, they do not “possess self-confidence to overcome poverty”, particularly in the face of lots of global competition and global economic crisis. They need certainly to be helped.

Self-confidence? Aah! Forget about the various problems faced by the many self-help groups throughout the country. They are all lacking 'self-confidence' and 'innovation'. Moreover their mind-set is at fault. Otherwise, why will they commit suicides in such large numbers? And why did they allege physical attacks? They do not want to be rich, so they are not rich and still are facing problems. Forget about the recent newspaper reports about the poverty, deprivation and the failure in the implementation of the 'direct transfer scheme' or even the distribution of Aadhar cards in Amethi and Rai Bareli parliamentary constituencies. All these pertain to the state of mind of the writer and not the mind of the State.

Now, let us not get into the big philosophical question: 'You think, so you are' or 'You are, so you think'. Our Baba has told us. We are and we think bad, so we are poor. Long, long back, hasn't Adi Sankara told us, 'Gajam midhya, palayanam midhya'. It is midhya that we are poor. Let us think big and we will become rich.

Hope the Congress party also follows the same principle. Let it think big, with all self-confidence that people will vote for it in 2014 elections or for that matter in the coming elections to the various state assemblies. And pray their ‘thinking’ gives their man another opportunity to hoist the flag on the Red Fort. If only wishes were horses!

But, Reality Bites. People, wiser by experience, will not just think but will act.