Allowing Retail FDI in India: lies, lies and damn lies

At a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is refusing to rollback the decision to open the retail sector to foreign direct investment saying it will benefit our country, the American President Obama thinks otherwise. In a tweet on Saturday (Nov 26), President Obama wrote: “support small businesses in your community by shopping at your favourite local store.”

While President Obama is talking of what is good for America, Manmohan Singh too is adamant on protecting American interests. It is primarily for this reason that Manmohan Singh’s assertion that retail FDI will benefit our country and ‘improve rural infrastructure, reduce wastage of agricultural produce and enable our farmers to get better prices for their crops’ is not borne on facts. In the midst of the rhetorical contests in the TV studios, the real facts have been sacrificed for the sake of political partisanship.

A lot has been said and written about the virtues of allowing FDI in retail into India. Let me make an attempt to answer some of the bigger claims that Commerce Minister Anand Sharma as well as the Prime Minister have repeatedly made. Frankly, their arguments seem to be driven more by political expediency rather than any economic understanding, and that is more worrying. It only shows how economic facts can be twisted, tailored and manipulated to justify the political agenda of the ruling party. There can be nothing more damaging for the future of a country.

First, the biggest argument in favour of multi-brand retail is that it will create 10 million jobs by the year 2010. There is no justification for this claim. In the United States, Wal-Mart dominates big retail. It has a turnover of US $ 400 billion, and employs 2.1 million people. Ironically, the Indian retail sector too has a turnover of US $ 400 billion, but has 12 million shops and employs 44 million people. It is the Indian retail which is a much-bigger employer, and any effort to allow retail FDI will only destroy millions of livelihoods.

Take the case of England. The two big retail giants are Tesco and Sainsbury. Both had committed to create 24,000 jobs between them, in the past two years. A British government enquiry found out that instead of creating any additional job, these two big retail companies had actually thrown out 850 people from existing jobs. The big retail units which failed to create jobs in their own countries cannot be expected to create additional employment in India.

Second, Anand Sharma says that retail FDI will provide 30 per cent more income to farmers. There can be no bigger lie than this. In the US, for instance, if Wal-Mart was able to enhance farm incomes there was no reason why the America government would dole out a massive subsidy of US $ 307 billion under the US Farm Bill 2008, which basically makes a budgetary subsidy provision for the next five years. Most of these subsidies are clubbed in the category of Green Box under the WTO. And as per an UNCTAD-India study, if the Green Box subsidies are withdrawn, American agriculture faces a collapse.

Agriculture in America is therefore sustained with agricultural subsidies. In OECD countries, a group comprising 30 riches countries, the situation is no different. A latest 2010 report states explicitly that farm subsidies rose by 22 per cent in 2009, up from 21 per cent in 2008. In just one year in 2009, these industrialised countries provided a subsidy of Rs 12.60 lakh crore to agriculture. Despite this, every minute one farmer quits agriculture in Europe. This is happening at a time when farmer’s incomes are dwindling. In France alone, farmer’s income has fallen by 39 per cent in 2009.

Third, big retail helps remove the middlemen and therefore provides a better price to farmers. Again, it is a flawed argument and is not borne on any evidence. Studies show that in America in the first half of 20^th century, for every dollar worth of produce a farmer sold, 70 cents was his income. In 2005, farmer’s income had fallen to 4 per cent. This is despite the presence of Wal-mart and other big retailers in America.

In other words, the middlemen are not squeezed out as is the general understanding but in reality their number actually increases. A new battery of middlemen – quality controller, standardiser, certification agency, processor, packaging consultant etc – now operate under the same retail hub and have been walking away with farmer’s income. Moreover, due to the sheer size and buying power, big retail generally depresses producer prices. In England, Tesco for example paid 4 per cent less to producers. Low supermarket prices in Scotland have forced irate farmers to form a coalition called ‘Fair Deal Food’ to seek better price for their farm produce.

Fourth, retail FDI will source 30 per cent from the small and medium enterprises and therefore will benefit Indian manufacturers. This is an afterthought, especially after a section of the media highlighted the discrepancy. Even though Anand Sharma says 30 per cent products would be sources from within the country, the facts remains that under the WTO agreements, India cannot limit the big retail from outsourcing its products from anywhere in the world. This is against the WTO norms, wherein no member country can apply any investment restriction that is inconsistent with the provisions of Article III or Article XI of GATT 1994.

Using the WTO provisions, multi-brand retail will flood the Indian market with cheaper Chinese manufactured goods thereby wiping out the domestic SME sector. At the same time, the ‘Indian Stamp’ on multi-brand retail that Anand Sharma claims will have at least 60 per cent investment on ‘back end’ systems is also not based on facts. As per the definition of ‘back-end’, anything that is not ‘front-end’ becomes ‘back-end’ and has to be self-certified. Which means even the expenses on the corporate headquarter becomes ‘back-end’ investment. In any case, 51 per cent FDI in cold storages etc is already provided and yet no investment has come. Let us be very clear, big retail is not coming to India to provide a network of food storage silos and cold chains.  

Fifth, more importantly, in an eye-opening study entitled “Wal-Mart and Poverty”, Pennsylvania State University in the United States has clearly brought out that those American states that had more Wal-Mart stores in 1987, had higher poverty rates by 1999 than the states where fewer stores were set up. This is something that the government is not talking about but should ring an alarm bell for a country which is reeling in poverty, hunger and squalor. 

World produces enough food for the year 2050. The problem is access and distribution.

With the world population crosses 7 billion, feeding the teeming population is becoming a major concern. At times of diminishing land resources, and in an era of climate change, ensuring food security is the biggest challenge.

All efforts are aimed at increasing food production. Somehow an impression has been created that the world needs to increase crop production manifold if it has to meet the food requirement for the year 2050. The global population would then be 9 billion. What is however deliberately being glossed over is that there is at present no shortage of food. It is not production, but access and distribution that need immediate attention.

At present, the total quantity of food that is produced globally is good enough to meet the daily needs of 11.5 billion people. If every individual were to get his daily food requirement as per the WHO norms, there would be abundant food supplies. In terms of calories, against the average per capita requirement of 2,300, what is available is a little more than 4,500 calories. In other words, the world is already producing more food than what would be required in 2050. So where is the need to panic?

Why then is the world faced with hunger? Simply put, one part of the world is eating more and the other is left to starve. Hunger has grown over the years because of gross food mismanagement. Let me explain. At the 1996 World Food Summit, political leaders had pledged to pull out half the world's hungry (at that time the figure was somewhere around 840 million) by the years 2015. In other words, by 2010, the world should have removed at least 300 million people from the hunger list.

Instead it has added another 85 million to raise the hunger tally to 925 million. In my understanding, this too is a gross understatement. The horrendous face of hunger is being kept deliberately hidden. But nevertheless, let’s again go back to the question we posed earlier: If there is no shortage of food than why the growing pangs of hunger?

Consider this. An average American consumes about 125 kg of meat, including 46 kg of poultry meat. While the Indians are still lagging behind, the Chinese are fast catching up with the American lifestyle. The Chinese consume about 70 kg of meat on average each year, inclusive of 8.7 kg of poultry meat. The Indian average is around 3.5 kg of meat, much of it (2.1 kg) coming from poultry. If you put all this together, the Chinese are the biggest meat eaters, and for obvious reasons - devouring close to 100 million tonnes every year. America is not far behind, consuming about 35 million tonnes of meat in a year.

When I said earlier that one part of the world is eating more, this is what I meant. Six times more grain is required to provide the proteins that are consumed by the meat-eaters. Changing the dietary habits therefore assumes importance. But still worse, Americans throw away as much as 30 percent of their food, worth $ 48.3 billion. Why only blame the Americans, walk into any marriage ceremony in India and you would be aghast to see the quantity of food that goes waste.

Food wastage has therefore become our right.

Considering FAO's projections of the number of people succumbing to hunger and malnutrition at around 24,000 a day, I had calculated that by the year 2015, the 20 years time limit that World Food Summit had decided to work on to pull out half the hungry, 172 million people would die of hunger. These people are succumbing to hunger because both at the household and at the national level, we have allowed food to go waste.

In America, for instance, hunger has broken a 14-year record and one in every ten Americans lives in hunger. In Europe, 40 million people are hungry, almost equivalent to the population of Spain. In India, nearly 320 million people live in hunger. The International Institute for Food Policy’s Global Hunger Index 2011 ranks India 67^th among 81 countries. While India ranks lower than Rwanda, what is still more shocking is that Punjab – the food bowl – ranks below Sudan and Honduras in ensuring food security.  

Is it so difficult to remove hunger? The answer is No. 

A simple act of saving and sharing food is the best way to fight hunger. It can begin at the household level, at the community level and of course at the regional and national levels. If every household were to ensure that no food is wasted, and then organise the left over to be delivered to the poor and needy, much of the hunger that we see around can be taken care of. A small initiative in Rewari town in Haryana has galvanised the township into saving and sharing food. If it can happen in Rewari, it can happen in your neighbourhood too. Try it, and you will see you too can make a difference. #

Turmeric can heal but only if you get it pure

Some years back, I remember listening to Bhagat Singh’s nephew, Dr Jagmohan Singh. He was addressing a public meeting at Bhagat Singh’s native village. I still recall him speaking passionately about the need to use haldi (turmeric) in our daily preparations, and what continued to linger in my mind was his suggestion to procure pure haldi at any cost. “If a family can consume one kilo of pure haldi in a month, believe me most of the family’s health problems would be taken care of.”

I knew that haldi being sold in the market was contaminated with horse dung and various other impurities. But with more and more packaged and branded haldi coming into the market I thought the problem with contamination had been taken care of. But I now realise I was wrong.

Last week, I travelled to Hoshiarpur in Punjab to visit a small farmer’s cooperative by the name FAPRO (Farm Produce Promotion Society). Comprising 300 members, the main activity of this society which is based in village Ghugial, centres on processing of haldi and honey. I was told that haldi is cultivated in 23 acres, and the farmers are paid 20-25 per cent higher price than the average prevailing market price. The entire crop is grown under natural farming conditions.

Going around the processing plant and talking to the officials and farmers present, what I learnt was certainly eye-opening. I was told that generally the haldi that is sold in the urban areas contains roughly 40 per cent of filler. Normally, the filler is of rice powder made from broken rice grains that do not fetch a high price in the market. The more you go into the countryside, the percentage of rice powder filler increases. In rural areas, it is not unusual to find 60 per cent of rice powder mixed in haldi. No wonder, you must be wondering why haldi is not that effective anymore.

Although rice powder is not damaging to human health, but mixed with haldi it certainly reduces the medicinal efficiency of haldi powder. Now I know why the haldi powder that I have been consuming is not as effective in healing as it is generally known to be. A hot glass of milk with haldi is supposed to be strong antidote for most sorts of trauma and cough. Turmeric has antioxidants which help purify the blood, protect the liver and remove toxins from the body. Regular consumption of haldi, and when combined with a dose of honey, helps ease pain that originates with ageing of bones. When consumed with raw garlic it is effective against bronchitis.

The list of its healing properties is endless. Haldi is know to be of immense medicinal use and that is why some years back there was an effort to draw a patent on its healing properties by an American institute. After public outcry, the government had successfully managed to fight the patent and get it revoked. But what is the use of singing all praises for haldi when consumers can’t get pure and good quality haldi in the market. At least two sources of pure haldi I can suggest. The next time you are looking for haldi, you can search for FAPRO haldi in Hoshiarpur, and also from Markfed outlets across Punjab. Another source for pure haldi is Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogapeeth outlets which exist in every town.                

  

Debt-ridden Kingfisher Airlines to get a bailout package; indebted farmers are left to die.

Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya is in trouble. His airline awaits an emergency rescue. Kingfisher Airline suffered a loss of Rs 1,027 crore in 2010-11 and has a mounting debt of Rs 7,057.08 crores. With banks reluctant to give more cash to Kingfisher Airlines, Vijay Mallya has turned to the government.

Civil Aviation minister Vayalar Ravi has been quick to make a public pitch to bailout the debt-ridden company. "I will meet the Prime Minister on his return to the country," he told the Indian Express. "I will also talk to the Finance Minister so that some assistance from the lead banks is granted. Closing down the flights affects the travelling public".

Ironically, in the past one month more than a hundred farmers have committed suicide in Andhra Pradesh, Vidharba and Kerala. All these farmers took the fatal route to escape the humiliation that comes along with mounting indebtedness. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 15,964 farmers committed suicide in 2010 alone. Put together, more than 250,000 farmers have taken their own lives during the past 15 years. Growing indebtedness had pushed them to the brink.

I haven't seen any urgency on the part of the successive governments or the policy planners and mainline economists to provide a bailout package to the beleaguered farmers. I don't understand why the serial death dance in the countryside does not evoke any reaction while all hell breaks loose when a big company goes bankrupt. Aren't the poor farmers human beings? Why is that they don't need even a word of sympathy whereas all aviation experts/planners and economists are making a strong pitch for bailing out a debt-ridden airline?

Well, George Orwell was dead right. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

This brings me to the fundamental question. Economic reforms have been built on the need to privatise the industry. The economic justification for privatisation is that it ushers in efficiency. The underlying principle is that while efficiency has to be appreciated, the inefficient ones are left behind and need to be dumped. The rules of the game are clearly laid out. In a competitive environment, inefficient firms bow out. Agreed, than why do we want to change the rules of the game? Why do we want to bailout a bankrupt company? Why shouldn't it be allowed to die?

I see a number of experts on the TV channels making a strong plea to bailout the company. These experts of course are all beneficiary of a system that keeps inefficient industries floating with the help of public money. This is what happened when the world witnessed economic collapse in 2009. The inefficient and corrupt banks were rewarded with bailout packages, and the top executives who should have gone to the jail instead received bountiful bonuses. Market economy was made to survive with public money.

More than US $ 20 trillion of public money was pumped in to keep economic liberalisation alive. And this tells us that market reforms or market economy cannot sustain without public money. All it does, and that too very cleverly, is to hoodwink us to believe that capitalism is the sure path to economic growth. In reality, all it does is to allow for 'privatisation of profits, and socialisation of costs'. The rich become richer, and the poor are left to pick up the socio-economic as well as the environmental costs.

Aren't mainline economists therefore liars? They go on singing virtues of a failed and flawed economic model? Why don't they muster courage to accept the underlying principles of economic reforms? Well, the answer is obvious. They too are beneficiaries of the same flawed economic model.

Kingfisher Airline should be allowed to die a natural death. Unless we do so we will never be able to clean the rot in the system. We will go on supporting inefficiency with bailouts. What we need, and need desperately, is to send a strong message that inefficiency can NEVER be appreciated. Otherwise, we will continue to ensure that the big companies never collapse. The bigger the company the bigger would be the tax-payers support in the form of a bailout package.

The government cannot be allowed to run a charitable hospital for the ailing private companies. Let them strictly follow the rules of the game. Only the fittest survives, and the rest need to be dumped in the dustbin.

Food inflation: Groping in the dark

Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh considers rising food inflation to be a sign of growing prosperity, the reality is very harsh and painful. Rising food inflation, which continues for the 4^th successive year now, has hit the aam aadmi like never before. Adding fuel to fire is the frequent raise in petrol prices. 

Every time food inflation crosses the double-digit barrier, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, have been quick to set a deadline some three to six months ahead during which period they promise to bring down the prices. While the failure to stem the price rise is written large, what is more worrying is the complete inability of the government to comprehend the reasons behind it. Economists and policy makers appear clueless and therefore continue to grope in the dark.

For over 4 years now, in every media discussion that I am invited to, I am appalled at the economic ignorance that prevails. They go on harping again and again on what the economic textbooks would prescribe as the plausible reasons behind any runaway inflation. Whether it is any member of Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council or the Planning Commission or one of the senior officials of the Reserve Bank of India, the answers you get are all the same: food inflation is because of low production; with rising incomes there is a shift in demand towards nutritious foods thereby increasing the prices of fruits, vegetables and milk products; and because the farmers are being paid a higher procurement price, the consumers have to pay more.

Now let us look at the each of the argument separately. The common refrain that one hears is that food prices are on an upswing because production is unable to match the growing demand. For several months now, you have watched with concern news reports of foodgrains rotting in godowns. While lakhs of tonnes of wheat and paddy are allowed to rot, we are being told that there is a need to increase crop production. Ever since the TV channels began highlighting the grain wastage, except for lip-sympathy, the government has not made any significant allocation for creating additional storage space. In such a depressing scenario, how will more production help? Where will the government store the additional produce? Will it too not go waste?

Every year, as per official figures more than 16 lakh tonnes of foodgrains rot in godowns. The quantity of wheat and rice that becomes sub-standard and unfit for human consumption and which has to be sold for manufacturing alcohol and goes as cattle feed is several times more.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh equated inflation with prosperity, he was trying to say that with more income in hand people have shifted to nutritious diets. The demand for fruits, vegetables and milk products has shot up as a result. This too is untrue, and has no scientific basis. Since this is a frequently asked question, I did some computation of the production estimates. The per capita daily availability of fruits and vegetables is 480 grams. The per capita requirement for a balanced diet is roughly 80 grams, against which the actual consumption is much low. Therefore it becomes apparent that there is at least six times more availability of fruits and vegetables in this country than what is required. So where is the shortfall? Why are the prices of fruits and vegetables sky-rocketing when the availability is in abundance?

In any case, the argument that with rising incomes the intake of nutritious food products in the food basket expands is also not based on any empirical evidence. The 2007 National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) tells us that cereal consumption has been on a steady decline, with no corresponding increase in the intake of more nutritious eggs, vegetables, fruits and milk. It means hunger has been on a rise and is now more widespread and well-entrenched. The feeling was that with the changing food habits, people have shifted from cereals to nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables and milk. This assumption too does not hold true anymore.

The decline in cereal consumption has more or less followed a steady pattern in the rural and urban areas, of course much faster in the rural areas. Per capita cereal consumption per month in the rural areas across the country has fallen from 13.4 kg in 1993-94 to 11.7 kg in 2006-07. The decline has been sharper between the period 2004 and 2007 when just in three years, cereals consumption fell from 12.1 kg to 11.7 kg. In the urban centres the decline was from 10.6 kg in 1993-94 to 9.6 kg in 2006-07. In a largely vegetarian society, cereals constitute the single important source of nutrition and therefore its importance in the Indian context is well established.  

Moreover, if it was true, India’s ranking in the 2010 Global Hunger Index prepared by the International Food Policy Research Institute should have improved. India continues to rank 67^th among 81 countries, faring much lower then Pakistan, Sudan and Rwanda. If people had started eating more, I see no reason why India should be ranked so low in the hunger index.

And finally how true is the argument that food prices are going up because farmers have been paid a higher procurement price. Wheat, rice and sugarcane are essentially the three major crops where farmers have received a higher procurement price. Interestingly, wheat and rice are not the crops where food inflation is hurting the poor. In case of sugarcane, after a hike in prices in 2009, sugar prices have stabilised even though the growers are getting a higher price. It is in case of fruits and vegetables, which do not receive any benefit of procurement prices, where the market prices have made a hole in the pocket of average consumers.

Economists need to understand that it is not the farmer who gains from food inflation. He never gets a high price for his produce even when market prices touch the roof. For sake of illustration, let us look at a banana grower. All he earns is between Rs 8-9 per dozen where as the prevailing market price hovers between Rs 50-60. The real problem therefore lies in the mandis. It is the wholesale and retail trade, which in the absence of any tough regulation, is exploiting the consumers by raising the prices by anything between 100 to 300 per cent. In the absence of any crackdown, the trade is having a free run.

The government doesn’t want to check the traders because as the Prime Minister said the other day he wants more and more commodity prices to be deregulated. He wants market to decide the final price of the farm produce. In other words, we are paying through our nose to keep alive market reforms. #

Occupy Wall Street and India's struggle against corruption have much in common, but Occupy goes much beyond ..

The screaming headlines provide insight into the dichotomy that prevails in our society. This newspaper reported that in Chandigarh alone (in northwest India) Rs 80-crore worth of gold ornaments and nearly 800 cars were sold on the occasion of Dhanteras. Far away in Patna, Rs 400-crore were withdrawn on the same day from ATMs. It seems buying metals on this auspicious occasion had beaten all records.    

Most families consider Dhanteras to be an auspicious occasion to buy gold and silver. Unfortunately for them, the prices of these precious metals have gone through the roof in the last few months, making it difficult for many to buy even a coin of few grams. Completely unable to comprehend the reasons behind such high price-rise, many of them can be heard asking, “Why have gold prices increased so much”?

Little do they know that the unprecedented escalation in gold prices is only because of speculation in which just one per cent of the investors are raking in huge profits while 99 per cent end up paying through the nose. This in short is the essence of the slogan, ‘We are the 99 per cent’, that is sweeping across the continents. More than 950 cities in 82 countries have seen thousands of people streaming in to the roads, squares and the parks to protest against economic inequalities. What began as a silent sit-in by a handful of protesters in the Wall Street -- the financial capital of the world -- New York a month back, has now spread like a wildfire.

In India too, some groups, including the Communist Party, have launched of the Indian version ‘Occupy Dalal Street’ from Nov 4.

Well, before we follow the global trends let me take you back to the days when petrol price internationally had shot up to $ 140 a barrel. This was barely two years back in 2009, just before the world witnessed an economic meltdown. I remember even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that he wasn’t sure whether it was because of a slump in production or rise in demand. The fact is the stupendous rise in oil prices was not because of supply-demand constraints. It was simply because of speculation in trading. The companies which have invested in its stocks on the Wall Street try best to garner more profits.

Oil prices subsequently slumped to a low of $ 40 a barrel. From $ 140 a barrel to $ 40 a barrel certainly proves that demand had nothing to do with prices. It was all in the game of speculation.    

In lot many ways Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption looked similar. But while, Team Anna is crusading for the removal of graft from public life, Occupy movement goes much beyond and hits at the very foundations of the growing inequalities. Removing corruption will make available more resources for development activities, and as Swami Ramdev has been saying bringing back Rs 400 lakh crore of black money stacked abroad will make available abundant resources that can be ploughed back to fight poverty and hunger.   

Removing corruption is certainly the crying need. But what makes Swami Ramdev and Anna Hazare’s struggle against corruption and black money different from Occupy campaign is that while you may not have to pay underhand for getting admission for you child in a school or a university but you will still end up pay exorbitantly for the gold ornaments that you need to buy for your daughter’s marriage. You will still continue to pay dearly and periodically for hike in petrol and diesel prices. You will end up paying more not because of supply demand constraints, but because some people are raking in more money through speculations in trading. You and I eventually pay for the greed of one per cent people. 

Occupy movement is a global struggle for a decent living. It hits at the very fundamental of the growing economic disparities, the inequalities and injustice that prevails. 

For more on Occupy Wall Street, read what Noam Chomsky has to say: http://bit.ly/rYxgK4

विषमता के खिलाफ लामबंदी

These are the 1318 transnational corporations that dominate the global economy. Of these, 147 are tightly-knit companies which control almost 40 per cent of the global network. This study is published in New Scientist (and I got it from Duncan Green's blog post: http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=7368)

दुबली कद-काठी की एक युवा लड़की नई दिल्ली में स्वर्णाभूषणों की एक दुकान से कुछ आभूषण खरीदने गई। आभूषण खरीदने की उसकी मंशा भी थी। उसने कीमत पर नजर दौड़ाई। वह यह भी जानती थी कि वह एक छोटी सी अंगूठी खरीदने में सक्षम है। उसने दुकानदार पर नजरें उठाते हुए पूछा, 'सोने के दाम आकाश पर क्यों पहुंचते जा रहे हैं।' दुकानदार उत्तर देता, इसके पहले ही मैंने अपना सर घुमाया और धीरे से कहा, 'महोदया, इसकी वजह सट्टेबाजी है या इस पर केवल अनुमान लगाया जा सकता है।' 

वह सोने की कीमतों के तेजी से उछलने के कारणों से नावाकिफ थी। वजह यह है कि बमुश्किल एक फीसदी निवेशकों को बड़ा लाभ कमाने वालों की श््रेणी में रखा जा सकता है, जबकि 99 प्रतिशत लोग गुजर-बसर करने को मजबूर हैं। इसके सार तत्व को संक्षेप में इस प्रकार कहा जा सकता है, 'हम उन 99 प्रतिशत लोगों में शामिल हैं,' जो पूरे महाद्वीप में फैले हुए हैं। 82 देशों के 1500 शहरों में रहने वाले हजारों-लाखों लोग आर्थिक असमानता के खिलाफ सड़कों पर उतर आए हैं, मुख्य चौराहों और सेन्ट्रल पार्क में प्रदर्शन कर रहे हैं। न्यू यॉर्क से यह मुहिम एक माह पहले शुरू हुई थी। विश्व की वित्तीय राजधानी से शुरू इस मूक प्रदर्शन की मुहिम देखते ही देखते जंगल की आग की तरह अब हर जगह फैल गई है।

आर्थिक असमानता के खिलाफ 'आक्यूपॉय वॉल स्ट्रीट' अभियान को हर जगह समर्थन मिला है। अमरीकी इसलिए नाराज हैं क्योंकि वर्ष 2009 की आर्थिक गिरावट के बाद बेल आउट पैकेज दिए गए थे, बैंकों को अब उससे भारी लाभ कमाने की अनुमति दे दी गई है। जबकि एक औसत अमरीकी का वित्तीय संकट से जूझना जारी है। अपनी अर्थव्यवस्था को धराशायी होने से बचाने के लिए विभिन्न देशों की सरकारों ने, इसमें भारत भी शामिल है, ने लगभग 20 ट्रिलियन डॉलर की सहायता उड़ेली थी। इस वित्तीय संकट के लिए जो देश प्रारम्भिक रूप से जिम्मेदार थे, उन्हें बोनस की मोटी राशि के चेकों से नवाजा गया। मैं पहले भी कह चुका हूं कि आर्थिक ढांचे के तंत्र को इस तरह डिजायन किया गया है कि लाभ के निजीकरण को बढ़ावा मिलता रहे और कीमतों का समाजीकरण होता रहे। 

जरा, इस ओर गौर फरमाइए, अमरीका में धनाढय वर्ग और औसत नगारिक के बीच का फर्क राष्ट्रपति रोनाल्ड रीगन के काल से गहराता जा रहा है। रोनाल्ड रीगन ने टैक्स कटौती शुरू की थी। इसे रीगन टैक्स कटौती कहा गया। इस नीति में घर लेने के वास्ते लोगों को सक्षम बनाना था। कहना न होगा कि अधिकतम टैक्स दर घटकर काफी नीचे तक आ गई थी।

 कोई आश्चर्य नहीं, एक फीसदी अमरीकी 42 प्रतिशत सम्पदा पर कब्जा किए बैठे हैं, जबकि 80 फीसदी आबादी सिर्फ सात प्रतिशत धन-दौलत पर निर्भर रहने को मजबूर है। दूसरे शब्दों में कहा जाए तो 20 फीसदी अमरीकियों ने 93 प्रतिशत सम्पदा हथिया ली है। विडम्बना तो यह है कि अमरीका विश्व का सबसे धनी देश है। यहां गरीबी ने 52 साल का रिकॉर्ड तोड़ दिया है, 15.1 प्रतिशत आबादी गरीबी में जीवन-यापन करने को मजबूर है। भूख ने सभी रेखाएं पार कर दी हैं। छह में से एक व्यक्ति खाद्य आपूर्ति के लिए कतार में खड़ा है। 

2009 की आर्थिक गिरावट और 1930 के दशक की महामंदी में सुस्पष्ट समानताएं दिखती हैं। 1929 में अमरीका के एक फीसदी शीर्षस्थ लोग 60 फीसद राष्ट्रीय आय पर कब्जा जमाए बैठे थे। अस्सी साल बाद हमें आय में असमानता साफ तौर पर दृष्टिगोचर होती है। आज शीर्ष पर बैठे दस फीसदी अमरीकी आय के 90 फीसदी हिस्से पर नियंत्रण रखे हुए हैं। अब यह समय सोचने-समझने का है कि हमारी आर्थिक नीतियों में दुखांतिक रूप से कुछ गलत हो रहा है। लेकिन यह एक ऎसा विस्तार है और नीति-निर्माताओं, शिक्षाविद्ों और मीडिया पर कॉरपोरेट ताकतों का ऎसा नियंत्रण कि बदलाव की कोई भी आवाज या चिल्लाहट परिहास में बदल जाती है। 

भारत में तो गरीब और अमीर के बीच का अंतर 90,000 गुना से भी अधिक हो गया है। विश्वास किया जाता है कि शीर्षस्थ 50 परिवार आर्थिक सम्पदा पर नियंत्रण जमाए बैठे हैं जो देश के एक ट्रिलियन डॉलर का एक तिहाई, साथ में जीडीपी के बराबर है। यदि ये परिवार दूसरे देशों में जाकर बस जाते हैं तो भारत की आर्थिक सम्पन्नता तेजी से ढह जाएगी। एक व्याख्या के अनुसार जिनके पास एक मिलियन डॉलर या अधिक की विनिवेश करने योग्य सम्पत्ति है, उनकी धन-दौलत 2009 में 1,26,700 मिलियन डॉलर के मुकाबले वर्ष 2010 में 20.8 प्रतिशत तक की वृद्धि होकर 1,53,000 मिलियन डॉलर हो गई है। 

ठीक इसी दौरान, संयुक्त राष्ट्र के आकलन के अनुसार भारत में 456 मिलियन लोग रोजाना 1.25 डॉलर से भी कम पर जीवन-यापन करने को मजबूर हैं। इंटरनेशनल फूड पॉलिसी रिसर्च इंस्टीट्यूट के ग्लोबल हंगर इंडैक्स-2010 के अनुसार भारत को विश्व के 81 देशों में 67वें स्थान पर रखा गया है। 

वर्ष 2004 के बाद के सालों में सरकार ने 22 लाख करोड़ रूपए से अधिक कॉरपोरेट और व्यापारिक घरानों को कर माफी के जरिए बांटे हैं। यह राशि लगभग दो सालाना बजटों के प्रावधानों के बराबर है।

 इतनी उदारता से तो नागरिकों, उद्योगों को नीचे से उठाकर ऊपर लाया जा सकता था, लोगों की धन-दौलत बढ़ाने में मदद की जा सकती थी। 'आक्यूपॉय वाल स्ट्रीट' अभियान जन नीतियों के खिलाफ अभिव्यक्ति है, उन धनियों के खिलाफ भी जो लोकतंत्र को निजी क्लब की तरह चलाते हैं। कई अर्थो में यह अभियान महात्मा गांधी के नमक सत्याग्रह की तरह है। मुठ्ठीभर समर्थकों द्वारा शुरू यह अभियान आज तूफान हो चला है और अरब सागर के तट तक पहुंच रहा है। 

Source: Rajasthan Patrika, Nov 1, 2011. http://www.rajasthanpatrika.com/article/opinion/1112011/editorial-special-article/242200