Scheme Without Thought


When Rahul Gandhi announced his Nyay scheme (Rs 72,000 p.a. to around 50 million families), people at office reacted predictably:
  •          It’s just an election gimmick;
  •           How is he planning to get the money for this? Would he reduce the current spending on (the Army?) for his scheme? How can he formulate such a massive scheme without giving thought to the specifics?
  •           Or does he plan to increase taxes? Why should the middle class have to bear the burden when the Congress only looks out for its vote-bank, the poor and rural folks?
  •           And given his party’s track record of opposing Aadhar, how does he intend to ensure the money is given to the right people? Or is this just the usual Congress kind of scheme, where middlemen and the Congress siphon off most of the money?
  •           The more financially aware also wondered whether increased government borrowing for this scheme would suck money out of the system and slow down economic growth?
  •          Why doesn’t the Congress ever have schemes that create jobs? Instead, they only like to give away money thereby keeping folks endlessly dependent and thus more likely to vote next time for continuance of the scheme (and Congress).

You don’t need to be a genius to ask these questions, but the Deccan Herald editorial hardly asks any. Instead, it lavished praised on the scheme saying it would “provide a sense of justice to the poor”. Giving freebies is what the Congress and its supporters call “justice”?

And here I thought that:
  •           Giving charity and alms is an act of kindness, not “justice”;
  •           Putting away the likes of Sajjan Kumar for 1984 is justice, something the Congress never did in all those years it was in power;
  •           UPA 2’s corruption was the heights of injustice for opportunities lost.

But hey, what do people like my office colleagues and I know? We’re just engineers, not left leaning intellectuals who support freedom of speech only when it comes to those who want to break India into pieces…

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