A country of sacred cows- that is what India is

Aren’t we a country of sacred cows? According to this ‘holy text’ or the Constitution, all Indians are equal in the eyes of law. But, isn’t this concept of equality just plain gas? Yes, it is and I shall explain why.

I am not going into the Uniform Civil Code or the Muslim Personal Law. Neither am I talking about reservations in jobs and education. These topics have been covered endlessly in the Indian media. What bothers me is that there is gross inequality among ordinary ‘ non- SC/ST tax paying Indians’.

A country of sacred cows

A few days back, I was in Lucknow, visiting my aged father. I wanted to spend some time with him because he lives alone. This ‘vacation’ gave me sometime to read newspapers and understand what was going on in the Uttar Pradesh society.

One day, I read news about electricity charges in UP going up by a rupee. I was surprised because the per unit electricity charges in Uttar Pradesh are already the highest in the country- Rs. 6/6.5.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that power rates shouldn’t be increased once in a while. But what got on to my nerves was that now my father was being forced to pay up extra even though electricity supply in UP was in shambles. Most of the homes in Lucknow have an inverter or some form of a power back up .

Recently, he received an electricity bill of Rs. 10,000 which he happily paid. Like him, there are millions of other people living all over UP who pay their bills honestly. So why is the Yogi government raising the power rates to Rs. 7/7.5 per unit?

The holy cows of Uttar Pradesh

I did a little bit of research and found out an astonishing fact; employees of the UP Electricity department don’t pay for their electricity! Yes, you are reading it right, this privileged group doesn’t pay for the electricity it consumes.

So who pays for their power? Obviously, people like us who don’t lead charmed lives. It is we who have to pay for the wastefulness of these electricity department employees. Many of these people sell off the free electricity that they get. How do they do it?

Imagine an employee of this department living in his own house in Lucknow. He rents a part of his house to others and charges his tenants for the electricity they consume. So while Mr. Smart Aleck gets free power from his employers, he makes a clean profit by selling it to his tenants! And what about us, the tax-paying janta of the Republic of India? We are given lessons in equality and honesty by our netas.

Dare not question them?

There is another breed of people which is placed on a higher pedestal than the rest of us in this country of sacred cows. These guys are the sacred cows of independent India and nobody can dare question them. Yes, you are right, these guys sport olive uniforms and are entitled to free rations and liquor. Never mind that vast sections of the Indian society go without a proper meal every day. But our ‘holy cows’ must have their free rations and free liquor even in ‘peace locations’ like Delhi, Mumbai or other big cities.

I have never ever understood the logic of this freebie to this set of people and their families. And even if they are entitled to this privilege of having free/ subsidised food and drinks, why should other Indians be deprived of it? Aren’t we an equal country? How am I, a tax-paying individual, different from a man in uniform?

This is not to say that people who are manning our borders shouldn’t be given free or subsidized rations. Please go ahead and satisfy them, but why should this privilege be extended to those men who are peacetime locations? This logic eludes me.

The Disability Allowance Hulla

This mindless privilege extends to the Disability Allowance as well. Until a few days back, all the services people who retired with a disability were given a Disability Allowance. Not anymore. The Income Tax Department has declared that all this allowance of all the servicemen will now be taxed. The only people who will be exempted are soldiers who are disabled because of war or counter-insurgency operations.

Not surprisingly, the sacred cows are up in arms yet again. They consider this Disability Allowance as a privilege. Perhaps these men think they are god’s gift to India. I respectfully disagree with this assumption.

My rant doesn’t end here for now my gaze travels to another group of privileged Indians- the Railway employees.

A charmed Life

Years ago, when I was a small kid and traveled in trains with my parents, I used to see railwaymen sitting smugly on berths reserved for bonafide passengers. These men had railway cards in their pockets which proclaimed to the entire world about their special statuses.

Free travel was their privilege and nobody could question them. They could sit anywhere inside the train- air-conditioned coaches, sleepers, chair cars, anywhere. Perhaps they had free lunches too.

According to this 2015 article. more than 2 million Indian Railway men and women get free travel passes. As a tax-payer, I am revolted by this statistic, it makes me feel I am an insect, a low-life and don’t belong to this country of sacred cows.

I can keep going endlessly here and quote examples of other privileged classes but that would not serve my purpose. The idea to write this article stems from the misguided belief that all us Indians are equal. No, we aren’t. There are some of us who are more equal. The others just belong to the cattle class who keep plodding day in and day out and bearing the burden of the society.