There is a very serious problem with our FREE LUNCH POLITICS. We need to ponder !!!!!!

A small story first.

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class.

One day while the class was in the lab, the professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line.

The young man said that it was no joke. "You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come every day to eat the free corn. 

"When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.

"They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side.

"The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in India.

The government keeps pushing us towards Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, rural employment, subsidies etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths: "There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself."

Hence, the problems we face today – “The people who work for a living are now outnumbered by those who vote for a living.”

But, God help us all when the gate slams shut.!

Now on a little serious note

Right from our Independence we have been listening to slogans “ Garibi Hatao” how unfortunate, the people coining the slogan have become richer and the “Garib” still remains and WORSE almost two third of populace is now officially considered “garib” and has to be provided with practically free food to subsist.

We have all the while been told horrible stories of cooking gas & kerosene oil where the subsidy was almost killing our economy, and we were forced to accept 9 Cylinders of LPG and pay through our noses for additional. We have witnessed a steep rise in fuel prices which the government claimed was breaking its back and here we bring in another demon to deform our back even more out of shape. My consideration is whose back and economy takes the hit - the same two third who are being given doles now or someone else.

We cannot subsidize two third of the population. Other way to say this “most of our population goes to sleep hungry”. In this eventuality we may ask,  what the governments and planning commissions have been doing for the past so many decades. Not one political party stood up to say this scheme is a “Bad Scheme”. All they could say was that this was not debated in the Parliament, but to condemn the scheme for all its ills – Never. With a very great resolve, massive push from International Agencies and media blitzkrieg to condition public mindset, Government decided to decontrol the petrol and partially the diesel prices, but it will be a political suicide for any political party in future to withdraw such Schemes.

To supply sugar in PDS, the Sugar industry had to be kept in tight leash for many decades which choked the industry badly. To resolve that reforms had to be brought to revive the Sugar Industry. Similarly to procure wheat grains for Food Security Bill, will there be a ordinance to force the farmer to sell wheat at a much lower price than the market price. Why should he cultivate to sell cheap, when his needs have already been met by the efforts of some other person.

What will happen to MGNREGA/NREGA and a host of welfare schemes for people in rural areas. And to top it all nobody want to be left behind in the race to announce free lunches, even at state level, let it be laptops, televisions, rice at Rs 1/-per kg and so many more. Who bears the cost of all these schemes. An honest but very small percentage of population paying taxes. This segment has already been paying for upkeep of the Parliament System for all its good, bad & ugly (with Supreme Courts recent decision hope we will see more good), Police to police, Army to protect the borders and save our souls in calamities, the judiciary and a huge bureaucracy amongst others.

Rest almost everybody who does not pay taxes, automatically becomes entitled to free lunches.