The French Revolution erupted when Marie Antoinette, the queen of the last Bourbon monarch, Louis XI, uttered those famous words, “If they don’t have bread, let them have cake”.

She had said this when a crowd of hungry people were advancing towards the royal palace in Versailles, 20 miles away from Paris. The revolution had several underlying causes but the aphorism stands for poverty and hunger of the people, contrasted with the ignorance and indolence of the ruling class, a complete breakdown in communication and thus an ignition of mass revolt.

The example bears a sobering resemblance to contemporary times when rulers are getting increasingly isolated from the ruled, but using the pandemic to strengthen their authoritarian impulses.

Several questions regarding Covid-management in India have since cropped up: was the Rs 20 lakh crore fiscal stimulus package announced by the PM on May 12 really a stimulus; did the nationwide lockdown announced on March 24 come with proper foresight and planning; were the intervening months from January to March spent properly in anticipating and preparing for the pandemic after WHO had declared it “an international health emergency of grave concern” on January 11 and the first case of coronavirus was detected in Kerala on January 30; did the Supreme Court intervene to protect the fundamental rights of migrant workers, namely their rights to life and livelihood guaranteed by the Constitution of whom the Court is the supreme custodian and protector; was the decision to allow migrant workers to move out from the states where they were residing taken properly given the PM’s call to the nation to stay where one was; even then did the government plan the inter-state migration process properly once the huge exodus was visible in almost all parts of the country?

Was it a good idea to run Shramik trains for the migrants and have them bear a a part of the ticket cost when most of them had no money even for food, and finally, has the central government coordinated well with the state governments in undertaking settlement and rehabilitation measures of the returning migrants?

The affirmation of negation in respect of any or all of the above questions could be the first step towards a call for social justice, a call necessitated by the devastating pandemic. The much-hyped package discussed in the media was meant to address all segments of the society and galvanise the economy while salvaging the hopes of the dispossessed.

The rulers perhaps ignored the fact that in the process of pushing and pulling the marginals from the margins of the society, the latter had lost their livelihoods, security of life and living, and above all dignity. Indeed, the dignity of labour, of the individual and her rights. The stimulus actually amounted to 1 per cent of GDP instead of 10 per cent, as calculated by the government.

Opposition parties at a recent Congress led-cyber conclave termed it a “cruel joke on the people” and called on the government to respect the spirit of federalism while using due parliamentary processes. They also reiterated their demand of cash transfer and foodgrains to every poor family placed in such a situation for the next three months. Social inequality is a global phenomenon though in developing countries which cannot afford a social safety net for its citizens, it hurts the poor most.

In India a socially structured and institutionalised inequality has gone on since millenia despite umpteen social reform movements. In the post-independence period even sugar-coating caste inequality under the guise of “affirmative action” has not helped. There have been too many leakages, and political interests have found their reason to flog it every 10 years when the time comes for amending the Constitution to let it continue for another decade. Oxfam’s Global Inequality Index places India among the bottom 15 countries on the basis of public spending on health, education and social spending.

The report measures government action on social spending, tax and labour rights and points to the lack of a progressive taxation system. The World Inequality Report (2018) has found that globally the top one per cent earners have captured 27 per cent of total growth as compared to the 50 per cent poorest who have got only 12 per cent.

The report states that the combination of large-scale privatization and increasing wealth inequality among nations has fuelled the rise in wealth inequality among individuals and advises tax “progressivity” as a proven tool to combat rising income and wealth inequality. French economist Thomas Piketty in his monumental work, Capital in the 21st Century, had advanced the theory that inequality as a social phenomenon will continue to grow so long as the disparity between wealth creation and income accentuates.

Piketty suggests imposition of a wealth tax that the rich should be made to pay to compensate for the shortfall in incomes of the poor and for the government to gain some surplus for spending on delivering public goods. The Indian government had passed the Wealth Tax Act in 1957, which was levied on an individual, the Hindu Undivided Family and corporate entity. The Act was repealed in 2016. In such testing times when the global economy is in disarray and India is fast moving towards a negative period of growth, the wealth tax should be again brought back to currency.

As per the present incometax slab (Union Budget, 2020), the top income earners would be bracketed with individuals with an annual income of Rs 15 lakh and above, and pay a flat 30 per cent tax. There is no thought as yet of a wealth tax for this category, nothing whatsoever on properties, inheritances, gifts, etc. In his latest work, Capital and Ideology, Piketty says, “every human society must justify its inequalities: unless reasons for them are found, the whole political and social edifice stands in danger of collapse”.

India has brushed the enormous diversities of inequality under the carpet for too long, it is time that it came to terms and undertook measures to redress it. The present crisis should enable the government to do some critical and long-term thinking to completely overhaul the social system and incentivise the under- class to enable them restart their lives.

In the climax scene of the South Korean film, Parasite, which swept the Academy awards this year, the poor protagonist, cunningly employed as a driver along with his family at a rich man’s mansion, thrusts a barbecue skewer into his boss’s back at a house party, all because the latter had detected a foul smell emanating from the driver’s seat. The poor man just could not bear the thought that his smell could nauseate his rich boss. Fortunately the ruling classes in our country stay within comfortable social distancing from the poor to ever be aroused by such olfactory distractions.

(The writer is a retired diplomat and presently undergoing doctoral research in social justice)