Bailout Tale from A Dump-Headed Village

Here's an interesting folktale:

Once upon a time, there was this group of moneylenders and shopkeepers who resided in a village somewhere in one obscure part of the world where people barely knew how the east was different from the west or north from the south. Although these folks did not bicker much about these issues, neither were they interested to know from where their food and articles of daily use came from, whether they had enough doctors or medicines in case they needed them or if their schools were teaching them stuff that would help them find stable jobs, have homes and later, a safe retired life. These were good people in this village, but because they truly believed the earth was flat, they rarely dared to go out far for fear of getting toppled at the edge.

The moneylenders and shopkeepers meanwhile, assured the good folks that they did not need to venture out far as everything the villagers wanted could be provided by this bunch of enterprising business people.

This is how it continued for several years until when one of the shopkeepers called E simply collapsed and people were surprised to find out that E had been indulging in bad business ethics, in essence, lying and cheating. This probably gave him heartburn and colon cancer, a deadly combination.

All that scandal was discussed animatedly but forgotten quite soon as other interesting things like an attack by a foreign enemy took place on the unsuspecting village. Laws, lifestyles and lot of other things changed owing to this dastardly incident. The village head was elected a second time and he led his army into another faraway village to punish the allies of the attackers. That war still rages today and costs a lot for the innocent inhabitants of our little village, but then, WTF, patriotism first, though our simple villagers.

To cut to the chase, very recently, the moneylenders and shopkeepers who have been regulating very important aspects of public life, business and politics, as well as funding the wars and several such important projects, found themselves without the expected returns. It appeared that the villagers were unable to pay back to the business community as per the high interest rates charged. Because the villagers did not have enough good jobs, enough assets and savings, also enough security that might prompt them to do timely paybacks. This despite the fact that the villagers often worked overtime, at two or more jobs, barely finished education or had little in healthcare or vacations.

So, when this situation continued, one by one the moneylenders and shopkeepers started to declare themselves "defunct" and asked the village head to bail them out. The amount they asked for was several times more than they could have spent in healthcare, education or environment for all these many years. Quite a few villagers found this a big joke and even protested. All that money the business community demanded was after all, supposed to be the money villagers paid in taxes so they could have improved governance. Some even pointed out the case of E, when it had gone bankrupt, causing irreparable harm to many villagers, taking their money with it. However, many others did not even understand what was going on and they thought the business folks must be re-instated. This is because the defaulters "constituted" the village economy.

Secretly, the moneylenders and shopkeepers were happy that nothing majorly punitive or critical was thrown their way. Even if they had lost out a bit, their core asset was intact and their leaders could still take home plump salaries, go for Caribbean cruises and buy land in Hawaii. After all, the villagers still believed in them. Goodfellas.

I'm stopping my folklore here. Because I ain't no crystal gazer. If the people of this village don't learn any lesson from this crisis, they sure are suckers for everything devious. Or else, it's chow-time again dudes!

Doomed: Gujarat’s daily wage earners

Nabina Das

New Delhi, May 12 (2002)

Shanti Abhiyan and PUCL-Vadodara (Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties), two voluntary organizations and human rights activist groups, have found that post Godhra carnage in Gujarat has rendered daily wage labourers bereft of employment and on the verge of starvation.
Most of the daily wage earners, a majority of them belonging to the minority community, are being forced to stay indoors for weeks together without any employment. A targeted attack on the minority community in the name of a revenge for the Godhra massacre has continued unabated ever since February 27. Homes of thousands of people belonging to the minority community have been razed to the ground. With all hell being let loose, and the government proving to be indifferent towards the ongoing problem in the once prosperous state, sources of livelihood have been destroyed.
It is only now that with the presence of K P S Gill, that the Gujarat state police has been revamped. The Supercop has promised stern action against those involved in rioting. Earlier, most cases of arson and looting happened in the presence of the police forces where the attackers had boldly stated that they have police protection.
According to Shanti Abhiyan and PUCL, looking back at the statistics, in the atmosphere of polarization in Gujarat in the past 5 years, as many as 10 lakh people have lost employment in the state. No new employment has been generated to rectify this. “The government, the public and the private sector have instead touted the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) as an answer to this,” states a PUCL observation.The PUCL-Shanti Abhiyan statement says: “Due to the new economic policy of the government, the situation of the common person is worsening day by day. Like vegetable vendors, groups of daily wage labourers move around in areas like Old Padra Road, Nyay Mandir, and the railway station underbridge. Now they have begun to overflow to other, newer areas of the city. In Baroda city, earlier there used to be 3-5 casual labour markets but now these have now increased to 20.”
Under any circumstance, daily wage workers have to work for more than 10-16 hours every day. The PUCL-Shanti Abhiyan report points out that as many as 4,000-10,000 people stand in labour markets for hours each day in Baroda city alone to get employed.
The common myth earlier, according to PUCL, was that these people are migrants from Panchmahal or Chota Udepur region. But a careful survey of these labour markets will reveal that there are new categories of people in these markets – even those who earlier had secure jobs or people who worked in industries that have now closed down, or those who have been retrenched in the name of "Voluntary Retirement Scheme".
The report states that some of these “daily wage labourers” used to get Rs 2,500-3,000 per month as permanent employees in industries. Now, in the casual labour market they get a meager Rs 35-65 as daily wages. With the size of this casual labour market bursting at its seams, the wages naturally, have shown a downward trend. With more people joining these markets after being rendered homeless in the recent carnage, ones may imagine the situation.Taking stock of the riot scenario in Gujarat, PUCL notes that the number of rickshaws that are run on rents has also significantly increased. Among the number of those who are earning a living in such a manner, 50 per cent are workers of the closed mills of Gujarat.
Amongst the new rickshaw drivers, there are of course those who are unable to get other jobs, but also those who have lost their regular jobs or have been retrenched in the name of voluntary retirement. Those who can afford to rent out their rickshaws have bought the cars themselves, so that those who drive the rickshaws and those who sit in rickshaws are from about “the same economic strata” making the economic condition of rickshaw drivers even more precarious. Around 70 per cent of rickshaws are not able to go on road ever since the riots broke out and assumed a nefarious proportion.
There are about 70 per cent of people who rely on the informal/unorganised sector for their employment. It is anybody’s guess that a section of the population has been either been driven out of their homes or virtually imprisoned in their houses since rioting began and are unable to go out to seek employment. This segment of the population are not white collared workers employed in schools, banks or any other organised sector, where if people do not show up at work due to curfew, they are still able to get their salaries or wages. So not only have these people been pushed on the brink of starvation and are being terrorised by the fear of communal attacks, but they also do not see a favourable state intervention.