Reforming Colonial Mind-Set: Freebies as Political Privileges.....by Pushpinder Singh Gill 

February 17, 2022: In an emerging democracy where constitutional values have not yet been stewed in our political conduct, power is essentially meant for private gain. Culturally, control of levers of power is seen as a way of promoting private fortunes. Arbitrary use of power, nepotism, and partisanship have become the acceptable goals of power. 

There is a sense of entitlement resulting from high office, money, and power as remnants of the colonial mind. These entitlements are in the same league as freebies which are thrown periodically as ‘bait for vote’ to the underprivileged sections of society. The poor, however, are often left out of valuable networks of exchange, thus facing considerable retrieval costs as votes for free stuff that the privileged class takes for granted.

The advent of forthcoming elections has exhibited unprecedented and innovative promises by political parties for the welfare of the general public in the form of their agenda or mission statements. Akali Dal and Aam Adami Party started with free units of electricity per month followed by cash transfers to women members of the household. The Congress party followed it up by promising scooties and free gas cylinders to the same target audience. 

As soon as the promises were made a narrative was set up by intellectuals and some political leaders in the public discourse about the harm caused by these promises to the psyche of our population and how these freebies would make them mentally handicapped.

This discussion and narrative bring forth a significant question of the applicability of the freebies proposition to all the spheres of society when considering the impact of these so-called freebies on the entitled and the deprived. Sadly, the free-of-cost benefits provided to the rich and privileged are called facilities, and welfare schemes for the needy voters are called freebies and lollipops. 

Members of Legislative Assembly, barring an odd exception, are invariably very rich yet they are entitled to a basic salary of Rs.1, 10,000 along with various allowances for staff, office, telephone in addition to a free house, government vehicle running into some more lakhs. In addition, free air travel, air-conditioned rail coaches, and reimbursement of road travel is also provided. 

They are entitled to soft loans of Rs. 50 lakhs for building a house and Rs. 15 lakhs for buying a car. Medical expense for them and their family is paid as per actual irrespective of them availing the treatment from India or a foreign country. The icing on the cake is that they are not supposed to pay any income tax on this and many other amounts left unmentioned here, from their pocket as the tax is again borne by the state and indirectly by the tax-paying population of the state.

According to RTI information, the medical expense claimed by these privileged individuals between 1st April 2017 to 26th August 2021 was 8.50 cr. Out of this, the expense claimed by current MLAs was 1.35 crore and by ex-MLAs was to the tune of 7.09 crore. 

On top of this irrespective of the tenure of the house, these MLAs are entitled to a pension which is raised by 5%,10%, and 15% on attaining an age of 65,70 and 80 years of age. If the person is elected to another term the additional pension is paid for each term elected by the member. These affluent members of our society surely can afford much more with the means at their disposal. But sadly these freebies are taken for granted and ironically considered to be motivational perks for participation in the political process hence cost and rationale of these facilities are left undebated in public space.

 It may be explained better when we recount that even after the combined declared wealth of more than 500 crore of Parkash Singh, Sukhbir Singh and Harsimrat badal they did not fail to collect the amount of Rs. 4 crores spent of Mrs. Surinder Kaur Badal’s treatment. 

Quoting this example is not targeting a particular party or politician but to bring forth the case of huge amounts spent on the governing class who themselves decide their own salaries and benefits. Punjab in the middle of a severe financial crisis is unable to spend on the welfare of its people hence should earnestly debate cost cuttings from top of the food chain. With the credibility of the political class at its lowest ebb, the need of the hour is to restore the confidence of the people, leading by example with credo of entering politics to serve the people. 

Social media makes the general public more and more aware about the living standards of the rich and elite leaders while the public is left to fend for itself. The flourishing business interests of the politicians are for everyone to see when in spite of lockdown and pandemic for the last two years, their wealth and net worth remained unaffected and continued to grow. This is in stark contrast to suffering of people with lost employment and shutting down of businesses effecting their daily lives. Lesser mortals had to withdraw their wards from schools being unable to pay the fees in absence of stable earnings whereas the politicians in governance remained immune to these hardships.

So fiscal effects of offering free units of electricity or 1000 rupees to penurious section of the society cannot be isolated from the cost of benefits provided to the financially well off who ostensibly do not depend on the state for these benefits. The need to generate additional revenues will always be there but the cutting of wasteful expenditure can be an easy start. Leaders who shun away undesirable benefits surely restore their image as politicians for serving mankind and humanity and not for personal gains.

 The crores saved from these wasteful expenditures can be better invested in creating employment for our children or providing better health care for the deprived. The priority of government should always be working for the downtrodden and uplifting the poor but sadly in recent times it has been high jacked and reversed to provide benefits to the already rich people who can afford to take care of themselves and trying to demonise anything as freebie that can benefit the poor. The privileged remunerations and contrived benefits by the class in power are actually a pat on their own shoulders for creating a social skew successfully to keep the poor, poor.  

The spirit of democracy can only come out alive when in addition to fiscal accountability performance accountability of elected representatives is also taken into account in quantitative terms. We have an appraisal system in all private and government sectors where employees are evaluated annually on the work they have done or results achieved but the politicians in governance are left off the hook completely. After every five years they go back to the electorate again with future false promises instead of being evaluated on past work. 

They conveniently use caste and religious equations to steer the conversation away from performance and sway the voter. If a work appraisal at the end of each year is published it will become very easy for the voters to judge the leaders on work performance alone and deliver a verdict accordingly.

Sooner or later there will be a cost to be paid for freebies, sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. None of above measures is a pipe-dream, all that it requires for effect is a collective will. We deserve better politics and ethical leadership. Democracy needs to be reformed and strengthened in every generation, and decency and honesty need to be nurtured and promoted with great care in letter and spirit.