Know the Fake Shepherds

The Bible often calls leaders as Shepherds. They can be evil or good. The traits of power-hungry human leaders are still the same, be it the Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age, Medieval, Modern Age, or the Age of Technology. The earlier ones were brute beasts, the latest ones sophisticated, learned beasts. The driving forces of greed, lust, and pride remain the same. The only thing that has changed is they know how to hide them behind sweet and sophisticated speech. 

What a good leader needs to do is not rocket science. They all know it in theory but know how not to do it. They are all words and no action. They promise paradise and deliver disaster. If they choose to listen to people and help others selflessly, they can solve many problems. But they do not do it, do they? Unfortunately, their love of money, sex, and fame always comes in the way. Such leaders need not lessons on technology but ethics and a clean conscience.

I have studied many Indian leaders over the past many years. The common factor is they are always concerned about winning elections. Rarely do I see a leader with a desire to do the right thing, whether they win or not. It seems as though winning is everything. After that, they spend all their energy on how to retain power for a few more years. I wonder when someone would say, "Well, I have five years to serve my people. How best can I do it?"

Invariably, the stress of the leader and his close followers is how to win again and decimate the opponents if possible. The needs of people and the promises they made to them take a back seat. The leader and his aides are "busy" doing things anyone could do. They want to stay in the limelight and drink the lime tea. What is the big deal in inaugurating an already- developed project? But that is where they spend maximum time. They need to claim what is theirs, right? What is more, they also make more money than sense through their sir vice.

The attitude of the leaders is such that the people who worked behind the project night and day did nothing. The leader who allocated funds and made the final speech did everything. People spend money, sweat, and work, and the leader takes all the credit. All he needs to know is how to cut a ribbon properly and pat a few people's back. And, maybe, deliver an emotional speech. I wonder if this trick would work in any sport. No cricket or football team captain can afford to do that for long.

Some might say, “Well, you are being too critical.” Perhaps I am. But let us examine the issues they handle. For the lack of space, I will discuss the first issue of the first five-year plan: Agriculture development for poverty eradication. So, where do you think India has reached in this matter in the past 76 years? Instead of eradicating poverty, we have successfully decimated the farming sector. The latest figures show a far smaller number of people prefer to live in rural areas doing farming. India learned from Israel and the USA how to solve the agriculture crisis. Consequently, many farmers left farming. Still, the number of poor farmers who die by suicide has increased rapidly, as have the millionaires and billionaires in a country of hungry and naked people.

Many leaders are ruining poor people, especially farmers. The economic disparity has no boundary. Every time people question them, the politicians produce manipulated figures. The poverty line goes down as if the cost of living is coming down steadily. And the number of billionaires also goes up every year. The rich become affluent, and the poor become impoverished. Everybody knows it, they confess. Then, what are you doing about it, people ask? They say we have this policy, that policy. For the past 76 years, they have made policies for one thing—poverty eradication. Even today, the people who ruled the country for maximum time accuse the present dispensation of failing to eradicate poverty.

The middle class is now becoming a poor class. The cooking gas prices have tripled, and oil prices have doubled in the last ten years. But sources say the money the most impoverished would need to live is still almost the same. It was around 33 rupees per day ten years ago, around one dollar. What is the present figure? About 42 rupees, half a dollar. That is how the poverty rate falls. Kudos to the brilliant leaders and their statisticians. Still, India has maintained its all-time record of having the world’s highest number of poor people.

In the past ten years, expenses have multiplied by three times, and the rupiah has declined by half. It was one dollar equals forty rupees then, now it is one dollar equals eighty rupees. But people with low incomes have become wiser, the statistics argue. People experiencing poverty need less money to survive now than they required ten years ago. Thank God, despite all these marvellous steps towards eradication, India still has the slimmest poverty line. In other countries, people need more money to live a day, and Indians need far less. What is more, even after all the statistical efforts to look good on paper, we still have the highest number of people under the poverty line globally.

In 2017, the poorest Argentinians needed eleven dollars per day. However, the most impoverished Indians needed only half a dollar a day. The most needy Chinese man needed one dollar. So, who is wiser? I would say people with low incomes in India are intelligent in spending compared to the Chinese and Argentinians—so much so about manipulated figures. Please look at the present policies of the governments of, by, and for the poor, for the poor are the majority. Everything favors the rich and the upper middle class. Politicians need money to win elections unfairly. And the business class supplies their need in return for permission to indulge in well-organized theft.

Some thinkers argue that poverty is in the mind. It is only a mental condition nothing to do with money or a lack of it. If you know how to live, you need very little to live. People with low incomes in India are a shining light to the rest of the world. We have shown people how to live contentedly without having anything. If these statistics happened in any other country, people would revolt. There would be retaliation. But we Indians are experts in living under slavery. We do not care how the ruling class treats us. They can cheat us, deceive us, and make false promises. Still, we will admire them. The looters who made us poor are still our greatest heroes. That is our mindset so that all psychologists can learn from the Indian specimen of contentment.