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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Want to know how India's richest 1 percent are wealthier than the bottom 70 per cent? Read on -Leela Prasad

Want to know how India's richest 1 percent are wealthier than the bottom 70 per cent? Read on -Leela Prasad

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published Published on Jan 18, 2017   modified Modified on Jan 18, 2017
-The Indian Express

Studying micro economies such as Bastar gives us the tools to highlight the rising inequality between the bourgeoise and proletariat.

New Delhi:
In Delhi University professor Nandini Sundar’s meticulously researched book, The Burning Forest: India’s War in Bastar, the plight of the adivasis struggling to make ends meet paints a striking picture of the growing wage disparity in the “Maoist state”. Wages paid to the adivasis are strictly controlled by contractors who procure tendu leaves — used to roll beedis — and sell them to traders. According to one contractor, adivasis were paid as low as 80 paise (figures from 2006) to collect 100 leaves. On a average, a worker, at best, collects 100 bundles a day; that is Rs 80 for a day’s of hard work.

Fourteen bundles of tendu leaves make a kilo, which is then sold at Rs 15.70. The contractor stands to profit anywhere between Rs 5-10. And he is just one person in the middle of this huge trading pyramid. The trader community is, like any other community, hierarchical. A majority of them are non-adivasis, mostly immigrants from other states. At the top is the Marwari community that controls the trade, with links spread across the country, and Kochiyas (agents) make up the bottom. Adivasis selling their produce directly at the weekly market are often cheated by Kochiyas, who under weigh the sale. And tendu leaves are just one of the many forest produce that make their way to the market.

To understand wealth disparity on a larger scale, it is important to fully comprehend where Bastar fits in the global economy. Studying micro economies such as Bastar gives us the tools to highlight the rising inequality between the bourgeoise and proletariat.

A recent report by UK-based rights group Oxfam notes that India’s richest 1 per cent now holds 58 per cent of the country’s total wealth — 57 billionaires in India now have the same wealth ($216 billion) — as that of the bottom 70 per cent population of the country. How did they get there? In a capitalist economy, organisations work towards achieving profits and maximising dividends for their shareholders rather than subsidising their products for the poor or distributing the wealth among its workers. In India, around 12 private corporations pay more than 50 per cent of their profits as dividends.

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The Indian Express, 16 January, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/web-edits/want-to-know-how-indias-richest-1-per-cent-are-wealtheir-than-the-bottom-70-per-cent-read-on-4476770/


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