By M L Satyan

Bengaluru, May 2, 2020: In the wake of Covid-19, both central and state governments agreed in principle to give a cash relief ranging from one thousand to six thousand rupees to the marginal farmers, migrant laborers and economically backward people.

In reality, a vast majority of the people have not received any money till date. Such people have expressed their woes when interviewed by many TV channels. On the other side, TV debates are going on about the compensatory amount to be given to the common people.

When some of the corporate giants recently contributed crores of rupees to ‘PM Cares’, my friend, who is running an NGO, asked me, “Sir, why can’t these corporates give their donations directly to the people?”. I answered him, “These corporates will NEVER give the money directly to the people as they will not gain anything. When they give to PM Cares, they will get a lot of support from the government.”

Classic examples: Just a few days ago, RBI has written off 68,600 crore loan of 50 wilful defaulters, all of them bank scam corporates. Baba Ramdev donated 250 million to PM Cares and his loans of 2.21 billion have been written off. It is a “give-and-take policy” that the government and corporates follow.

In spite of having huge money, the government, its departments and officials try to project India as economically backward country. On many occasions I have heard educated people making a statement: “India is a poor country.” If this is the idea that educated people have, then, what about the uneducated and illiterate population? The pragmatic and realistic statement should be: “India is a rich country with economically backward people.”

If India is really a wealthy country, then, where is the wealth? Who is holding most of the wealth? What is the extent of black money in India? In 2017 a study was undertaken by Kotak Wealth Management. The researchers interviewed 150 super-wealthy individuals in India’s major cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, and others like Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.

Senior personnel at major global luxury brands, art gallery owners, product dealers and industry body representatives were also interviewed. The study estimates that India has about 62,000 super-rich households, with a total wealth of around 45 trillion rupees. This is expected to grow to 235 trillion rupees by 2022.

What do Swiss banks reveal? With personal account bank deposit of $1,500 billion, an amount 13 times larger than the country’s foreign debt, one needs to rethink if India is really a poor country? From Swiss banks we can conclude that Indians have more money with them than the rest of the world. This is so shocking. If black money deposit was an Olympics event, then, India would have won a gold medal hands down.

Dishonest industrialists, scandalous politicians and corrupt bureaucrats have deposited in foreign banks in their illegal personal accounts money that has been misappropriated by them. As per the study, some 80,000 people seem to travel from India, to Switzerland every year, of whom 25,000 travel very frequently. What could be reason for their travel? It is obviously for the sake of black money, believes an official involved in tracking illegal money.

We are surprised to note that worship centres in India also compete with corporate infrastructure – i.e. Hindu temples adorned with gold and diamonds; Saudi Arabian styled posh mosques; precious marble-structured Sikh and Jain temples; western styled single, two-tier and palatial Christian churches with sky-rise towers (all multi-crore projects) and spacious 5-star ashrams/residences of religious leaders etc. Here is a list of a few selected wealthy temples and their income:

1. Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala is the richest temple possessing wealth of around 20 billion dollars.

2. Tirumala Tirupati Venkataswara Temple in AP gets an annual donation of more than 6.5 billion rupees.

3. Shirdi Sai Baba Shrine in Mumbai has gold and silver worth 320 million and the annual donation of the temple is around 2.6 billion rupees.

4. Vaishno Devi Temple in Jammu earns 5 billion rupees annually.

5. Siddhivinayak Temple, Mumbai gets an annual income ranging from 500 million to 1.25 billion rupees

6. Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai earns an annual income of 1 billion to 1.25 billion.

7. During the pilgrimage season, Sabarimala Temple in Kerala gets an income of more than 2.5 billion.

The fact is that India has plenty of wealth but it is not properly distributed. Unequal distribution of wealth and the unaccounted money are the real causes for poverty. The ultimate culprits are the selfish business groups in the corporate sector, vision-less politicians, corrupt bureaucrats and fake religious leaders. Surprisingly, all these people network together to safeguard their illegal wealth.

In the Covid-19 pandemic situation, it is sad to note that not a single wealthy temple or any worship centre of any other religion has come forward to share its wealth with the needy people.

In spite of the abundance of wealth lying idle in these wealthy temples, the black money of the corporates and the billions of rupees pouring into the newly created “PM Cares unaccounted box”, the common people are being treated like beggars. The migrant labourers are still at the mercy of the local government for their survival and return. This is the greatest irony in India.

Are the common people not eligible for the “unshared wealth” and “dignified life”? If all the available wealth is shared equally with them, then, every common person will become a millionaire. The only solution to the continuing poverty and its associated sufferings is a change of heart, a personal transformation.

Together with Rabindranath Tagore let us pray – “This is my prayer to thee, my Lord… give me the strength never to disown the poor… and help me to build a country where the people are not broken up into fragments of narrow domestic walls of disparities and discriminations.”