Letter to Arun Jaitley on Panama Papers
My dear Mr Arun Jaitley,
I have been reading about the Panama Papers; stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai and some Indian industrialists holing up their hard-earned money in tax havens. There are as far as I can see no leading political figures from India in the reports.
Which is good news. Most likely, that money must be in the pillows they sleep on. The bad news is that it would still not be accounted for. The point to be noted, Mr Jaitley, is not that you could set up shell companies abroad only after 2013 in any significant sense so your money is saved in those tax-free accounts; the point is, there are tax havens right inside the rich man's Italian washrooms in Delhi farmhouses and in the false bottoms of their Luis Vuitton grips.
Sir, this letter is not about the rich. Although, I do believe that the rich too have a right to their money. We all earn it the hard way. There is no easy money.
This letter is about me. A couple of years ago, I was in Sweden, Sir. I was being driven around by a Pakistani driver in his Mercedes taxi. I asked him, falling prey to the first journalist vice, which is excessive trust in taxi drivers as sources, "Do you like this country that you have migrated to?"
He slowed the car, turned around, and said: "This country is fantastic. I have been here for 20 years. I love it." I wished I could say that of my country.
A nation has come good, when its migrants - or minorities - say without cue, and on their own volition: Bharat Mata ki jai. Mr Jaitley, the reason why the Pakistani driver is happy has to do with economic and social security. He has two children. "One is studying for medicine, the other is in school." They apparently love what they do. He too. He loves his job. "The kids' education is free up to whatever level they want to study."
We will not stray into the fact that a good part of that expense is borne by foreign students who pay their full fees, and quite a lot of them are from India. If my driver falls ill, he can check into any hospital. Healthcare and surgery, if required, are free. If he retires and has no house of his own, he can have an apartment, which he can't own, but comfortably stay in. Why shouldn't he love Sweden more than his riotous mother country?
Every requirement that Marx demands for the sustenance of a humane society has been met by the Nordic Europe model of capitalism. The welfare state is here. Swedish Mata ki jai.
Mr Jaitley, sir, it's not so different in the evil empire of the US. My nephew is the vice president of a very large bank. He has been stuck in the post of vice president for some time now. So he is thinking of setting up something of his own.
This has its share of risks. There would be no income in the gestation period. "Isn't that a risk," I ask?
"Well," he says, " for the first year of my official joblessness, the government would pay me close to 90 per cent of my present income." I nearly froze, Sir. In any case their social security and doles are pretty impressive.
Cut, Sir, to me punching this out first thing in the morning on the strength of a cup of tea. Freeze frame on the letters. All my adult life I have worked hard. As a journalist I have seen much, much fewer number of sunrises and sunsets than most people in the world because, I come home past midnight. I bargain hard - if I am convinced the prospective employer is equipped to understand my potential, and most are not, whatever money I get, you or Chidambaram take 30 per cent. And there are other taxes.
Property tax - you don't help me build a home, you tax me for it nevertheless. Capital gains tax. Road tax. Service Tax. Cess. Excise duty. Utilities charges. I pay them all. Every day, every month, every year. Right on the f*cking dot.
Yet, if I am out of work, or too old to wield the shovel, there is no backup from the state. All my active life, I take care of my health. I pay for it. When I stop earning, and I fall ill, which is how we mostly die, Sir, the nation is a notion, the state is invisible in action.
These questions of the salaried middle class are not likely to be raised in Parliament. Not by the horse-loving Left, not by the cow-loving Right. Because it requires deep structural reforms to do away with corruption, which generates black money. It also requires an ethically-informed debate which is not of much value in terms of grandstanding and headline-grabbing.
Mr Jaitley, sir, where's my money going, if I may ask? And why is it not coming back to me when I need it most? Why should I not hole it away in false ceilings, in the mattresses or in the much-maligned "tax havens"? Tax haven! There havens right here, Sir. In the toilets. You don't have to go abroad.
So here's the question I want to ask you, the one which took millions of Panama papers to shape: why is it that I, whose name is not on the Panama list, do not feel the way the Pakistani driver in Sweden does?
Thanking you, and looking forward to your response,
Yours Sincerely,
CP Surendran