Montek Singh Ahluwalia's Response

Lately there has been a lot of noise about the poverty line and Montek Singh Ahluwalia has become the punching bag for everybody from our lecturers to my dentist, Lets have a look at his response in his interview.

A mould to achieve economic ends

When I say economic ends that doesn't mean only mediocre economic want, i am pointing out the superlative economic benefits.
The mould  or a pattern here mentioned is of the mass appeal, and this mass appeal is gained through various ways like politics, entertainment, religious preaching etc.

The most obnoxious of these all is the so called religious preaching, Karl Marx once remarked Religion is the opium of the masses. It has been proved right time and again. 
People are ready to do anything to gain favor from the so called god and this makes it a cake walk to those who want manipulate people and meet their economic ends. 
Religion or a faith works as a opium on people, just like a drug which gives relief when there is a pain. so when people are distressed and confused mentally they turn to faith. The so called god men exploit this situation which is perfect for them. When people are distressed they are very vulnerable and are ready to accept anything superficial. 
It also acts as an instrument to unite people against a common detractor. Whenever there is a threat from outside people try to use it as uniting instruments, as gregariousness is a nature of man. They try to use religion as a common factor among them. This is when the so called preachers com into picture. They try to exploit this aggression against the detractor and bring people together. But their motives are always beyond unity, even after the people are successful in getting rid of the detractor they continue to hold a great deal of influence on people. To fight this external threat people need something to unit and something to push them together thats when the preachers take advantage of it. 
This has been proved time and again, every time there is a conflict involving a muslim dominated country suddenly it becomes the so called jihad, they all turn to religion, just like in Afghanistan, when the soviet's pushed down south to Afghanistan, suddenly everything  became religious and the fight against the soviets was called a jihad, but it was no more than an assertive action taken by the soviets as part of the cold war suspecting that Afghanistan is being taken over by the US as then it was a buffer state between the two blocs. They just wanted to use Afghanistan as a base to spread their influence in the Persian gulf for oil . But it was made into a religious war by making soviets into the enemies of the Islam which is questionable as they were against the very concept of religion. This gave a platform for taliban to come up, the people are divided, they are distressed by war, they are poor and they are thirsty for a common faith. So taliban used these factor to gain ground and exploited the vulnerable people to control the vast natural resource and most importantly the opium and the trade routes, apparently this was their chief motive.
It happened again in South africa as well, when the black Africans were becoming aware of their rights, the white predominantly dutch ruling community made apartheid a part of bible, they started preaching apartheid as part of Christianity. Again when the people saw a threat they turned to preachers.   

This happened in USA also, after the defeat in the civil war, various groups like KKK( kuk klux klan) came into existence, only to protect the interests of the white community using the same old tried and tested method of religious preaching. It became so popular that even the celebrated president Woodrow Wilson was alleged to be a member of theses groups. 


Its the same in India also, in fact our constitution itself has given such freedom in its article 27. At the time of freedom we have seen people like Jinnah, Iqbal, Sawarkar, Madan Mohan Malaviya  capitalizing on religious sentiment to unite people but at the end it can proved that their motives were beyond unity or independence. If we go back a little bit, Shivaji also used the same sentiment to strengthen his influence on the people but at the same time what he wanted was the political autonomy to reach the rich Deccan. He had pledged not to make a pact with any muslim kingdom but he had to shake hands with the nizam when the emperor at Delhi lost his cool. That shows the religion means nothing but an instrument to their other motives.   

This is true in present day also, if we see the present political situation in Karnataka, the mutts are like the driving force behind the political parties, they serve as the vote banks for the political parties because of the kind of influence they have on the people. Since this is the mechanical era, when the people get tired of their mechanical lives they turn to these so called spiritual ways of dealing with their stress. This vulnerability is exploited by the so called spiritual gurus, indirectly controlling the people minds and their pockets. 
One question to these mutts is that what is their business in politics, as they play a very big role as they have a very deep influence on people either in the name of caste or religion. People should be aware of the hidden agendas before they get carried away by the so called swamis. 
The classic example in the present day is the young and dashing Nityananda, clearly his motives were beyond preaching spirituality or yoga,the possession of huge property itself says it all, he exploited the vulnerability of the people. People who went to him were those who were distressed but had a fat pockets.  




People shouldn't go weak on their knees just because of the spiritual, they have to keep their conscience alive. 

Article 27 of Indian Constitution

Article 27 of Indian constitution states 

Freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular religion No person shall be compelled to pay any taxes, the proceeds of which are specifically appropriated in payment of expenses for the promotion or maintenance of any particular religion or religions denomination.


Article 27 has its root in the article 26 but what it actually mean in reality is 
The so called spiritual and religious institutions do have to pay taxes for the donation they get.
They dont have to declare their wealth annually.
They dont have to pay taxes for the business they do. 
They dont have to have an audit and they dont have to disclose the results of the audit they have internally. 
They dont come under the authority of CAG.
Since they dont disclose their balance sheet no body know what they do with all the money. 


The super rich swamis or mutts are nothing but the reflections of this article which gives them the freedom of not answering to any authority when it comes to financial matters. 
How justifies is it to give the so called religious institutions such superlative freedom. Here i am not questioning their integrity if some people get offended just by a few simple questions, but i am just pointing out the need for accountability. I am just asking why should there be no transparency. Once anybody gets this kind of freedom, they tend to loose their focus. not to mention money has that power to make men dance to its tunes. 
I am not saying they are misusing their wealth, they may be doing a lot of social work in the form of school, hospitals  old age homes etc butt here my point is they have to show their balance sheet after doing all the sacred work. I mean, if the get 100 rupees as a donation and they do some good work like building a temple out of, they have to give a total balance sheet of what percent f this 100 rupees did they spend and from  where exactly did they get this 100 rupees and if they spend all of it how are they maintaining their administrative machinery. Not only do they get hefty donations they do fussiness worth crores but neither do they pay any tax nor do they give a quarterly financial report like all other companies who publish the quarterly financial report and send hem to their share holders. In the same way isnt it a moral obligation of these institutions to give the balance sheets to at least the donors, which includes every other person who put a coin into the box kept in front of every other temple, on other words every other person who visits a temple!!! the only difference between the donor and the share holder is that the donors dont  expect year bonuses  like the shareholders. 
When it comes to donors, it is very important to know the source from where they get such kind of money to just give it away. these institutions have became like home grown tax havens like Switzerland. When the question comes from where these institutions get such mammoth amount of wealth they will just say donations  but from where do these donors get such money when our country is not exactly filled with billionaires. Since these institutions are free from taxes they have become like the bank pvt banks who keep money for the rich 'donor' who want to just evade tax in the name of charity. And they dont mind give a piece of this wealth to the watch dog in the from of so called sacred religious institutions who have saved a major amount of their wealth from the tax dogs. 
Since these institutions are tax free and are already billionaires why the govts are funding them. I am not saying they dont do any humanitarian work, if they are doing good work what is their problem in publicly declaring their assets and producing a quarterly financial report like all other companies do. 
How fair is it to leave these billionaire institutions to go tax free while half of the country starves and when the whole country is full scams these so called religious and sacred institutions who are perceived to serving the people go with out a open audit. 


Isn't there a need amend this article??