On the Side of Enterprise and Free Market

Few pretty disappointing things happened in last few days, as we have stepped into the New year. A section of farmers from Punjab, ostensibly claiming to be representative of farmers across the country, stood blocking the roads to Delhi, led by one rejected politician and failed pollster, Yogendra Yadav, one four-time MLA of Communist Party and one founding member of Terror Organization.

Then there is Rahul Gandhi who is and is also not the Head of Congress Party. The man is reportedly in Italy to welcome the New Year, all the while instigating the people of India to create violence and anarchy. The problem with almost Fifty-year old Rahul Gandhi is that he has not done productive work of a day in all his precious life. The harbinger of negativity, quintessential Naysayer of Indian public space, Rahul Gandhi knows little about any thing and is inconsistent as Delhi weather these days. Journalists, who Rahul Gandhi claims, Congress has invested deeply in, and who in all their earnestness trying to position Rahul Gandhi in directly conversation with the people on national issues through YouTube videos, have, to their dismay, discovered the same old inconsistencies of character in the prince of moodiness. It is not known to every political observer that the one they thought to be the Beyonce of Indian politics with opinion on everything under the Sun, is not even a pirated version of Poonam Pandey. 

That said, the biggest problem is now the Communists who have this habit of sneaking into every act of political activism in India. Congress cover only offers them the legitimacy which these Mao cheerleaders otherwise will not have. With the collapse of Venezuela, the Indian Communists are possibly the only living specimen of a dying ideology. The Marxist ambition of the dictatorship of the proletariat is what we see unfolding on the borders of Delhi where Farmers supposedly sat on protest to oppose the Farm Bills, but has so far obtained for them subsidized electricity and a free right to pollute the capital with Stubble burning. The Gandhi family, like this year, can obviously escape to Goa under BJP rule during the period of polluted year, if not to the foreign lands. Rahul Gandhi would simply appear like a scantly dressed dancer in old Hindi movies to utter the word of 'Adani -Ambani' and then go back to his world of comfortable unreachability. 

The whole idea of Utopia in Marxist world has failed in Russia and China, primarily because it is a stupid idea. This belief that those who create the industries and businesses are corrupt and those who work in them are all epitome of honesty is absurd. The opposition has created a demon out of honest enterprise, like the windmills of Don Quixote. The Don keeps fighting these imaginary enemies and the young wokes like Sancho Panza keeps collecting under his flag, hopeful of the eventual annexation of the wealth created by the Entrepreneurs and distribution of it among them. Men like Yogendra Yadav are nothing but Dapple, the donkey of Sancho Panza. 

What is sad is that the Government is at pains to explain to the idiots that their bill has nothing to do with Adani and Ambani, two of the richest Businessmen in India. In other Countries, top Industrialists get awarded. In India, being an entrepreneur is a stigma. The Tax-Payers are the criminals in the new order and those who live on the subsidies the Government offer out of the same taxes are reincarnation of Buddha himself. Shocked and surprised at the shrillness of the voices condemning Capitalism, even those like Pinayari Vijayan, CM of only Communist-ruled state, who gets himself treated in America- The evil headquarter of Capitalism, the Narendra Modi Government has thrown them under the bus. This is pathetic. The Government should have stood by them. Both Ambani and Adani, first and second generation Billionaire, have been left to directly explain themselves to the people. 

They are releasing the advertisement telling the people that they have nothing to do with agriculture and somehow capturing the lands of unsuspecting farmers is not a part of their agenda. If Corporates like Pepsi and Coke who have been doing Contract farming in Punjab for decades did not take away their lands, no one else will. But then, everyone knows this, at least the Don Quixote smoking Cigars in Milan does.   

The mediamen who never had courage to become communist when young, are living their youthful dreams through these gullible protestors. They come on Television, write editorials how every industry is bad. Is the farmer not a capitalist? Farming is one area which is broadly out of State control. State's interference in Agriculture is most limited, only to the extent of help that state can offer. A sector which employs around Fifty percent of Indian Workforce contributes only 18 Percent to the GDP. This apathy of the state towards the whole thing where they allowed an occasional stupidity to grow into a legitimate movement is something which will play itself out in the long run. This doctored disgust towards free markets has even turned India's moment of pride into a snapshot of shame as Bharat Biotech CEO is made to make public appearance to counter the Congress propaganda about Corona Vaccine. This shaming of money, free market, of Businessmen, of Industrialists should stop. Narendra Modi Government is an election winning machine. It must understand that it also carries the responsibility of upholding the rights of those who do not hit the streets. The voiceless do speak in myriad ways and when they do, their voice shatters the citadels of power. I hope better sense prevails and this nonsensical drama causing around 4000 Crore a day loss to the economy struggling to find its way out of a Pandemic-induced lockdown ends. Indira's attempt to buy peace with the Communists after Emergency by imposing large-scale nationalization gave us a Bankrupt nation by Nineties. Let us not walk that path again. Money and profit are not evil. They are fair measure of a mature society. To quote from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged-

“So you think that money is the root of all evil? [...] Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?”