How politics of freebies fools people

In their election manifestoes for the recently held polls for Assemblies in five states, parties promised a lot of freebies. While practical questions are often asked about the capacity of the states concerned to redeem such promises, the morality and legitimacy of offering freebies to voters are rarely discussed. It is time these were discussed, indeed questioned.

Sadly, every party offers freebies. In UP, the Bharatiya Janata Party has promised free electricity to farmers for irrigation; in Goa, three free LPG cylinders a year to every household. The Congress has pledged to halve the electricity bill for farmers in UP. The Aam Aadmi Party has promised free power to people in Punjab up to 300 units per billing cycle.

Three points need to be made here. First, everything, be it electricity or LPG cylinder, has a cost. Second, no politician or party pay that cost from their own accounts. This brings us to the third point: that cost is borne by the exchequer. But who fills the exchequer? The taxpayer—that is, every citizen, rich or poor. For all of us pay taxes—directly and/or indirectly.

This implies that when a politician ‘gives’ something to some section of society ‘free,’ they are actually reallocating our money in to suit their narrow, political purposes. This is reminiscent of the fable of two fighting cats and a clever monkey. The politics of freebies is actually monkey business; politicians take us for a ride.

And we let them ride roughshod over individual liberty and genuine rights. Our political masters offer us entitlements—which actually arise from our resources, from the taxes we pay—and claim to have redeemed us. They test our credulity—and find that to be unlimited.

The reason is that our thought leaders, who should be perspicacious enough to see through the shenanigans and chicanery of politicians, are themselves infected with the doctrines that generate freebies and entitlements in the first place. For the ideologies they believe in are essentially statist and collectivist—socialism, communism, and now Hindutva.

Unsurprisingly, they often become complicit with the political class. Hence the long lists of freebies which drain the exchequer, hurt the economy, and therefore are detrimental to the interests of common people.