Editor,
Much has been written about the former C.E.M. of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council, Shri H.S. Shylla and some of the controversial Bills he wanted to implement with regards to putting pressure on the Khasi tribe by bulldozing his own views over others in the community who have differences of opinions. Take for example his desire to remove the so called English surnames. My question is: what about the first name? Mr Shylla’s first name, “Hispreachering Son is not Khasi at all. They are English words.
Ironically, the others who have blindly assented to the Bill during the previous Council have not raised their voices. That Council had names like Manstudy, Blanding, Equator, James, Grace etc. Interestingly his former colleague Teinwell who is now the Chairman of KHADC also does not have a Khasi name. So too names like Titosstar, Markle, Paul, Victor, Mitchel, etc.
The present respected members of KHADC should never be dictated by the whims and fancies of Hispreachering Son Shylla who has his own agenda, and now through a clan organization he has formed an organization – Ka Bri U Hynniewtrep through which he plans to put across a number of controversial ideas at the expense of people who do not see eye to eye with him on the issue of, `Who is a Khasi?’ If Shylla had his way then even the founder of the District Council, Rev J J M Nichols Roy and others like him would not be Khasis merely because they took the surname of the father.
Can you imagine the confusion that will ensure? Khasis who have taken the clan names of their grandfathers and fathers will be classified as non-Khasis and their offsprings too will not be considered Khasis and because of which they would not be able to hold office as MDCs and MLAs as those are reserved only for the locals. And such Khasis would henceforth have to pay income tax. Is anybody out there listening or even concerned about this societal conundrum?
Yours etc.,
I.R. Lyngdoh
Shillong-2
NYAY scheme will benefit the poorest
Editor,
This refers to the letter, “On Rahul Gandhi’s NYAY scheme” (ST, April 1, 2019) by Peter Lyngdoh. The Congress in its manifesto has made a promise of giving Rs 72,000 a year directly to the bank accounts of the poorest 5 crore (50 million) families if it comes to power. It is named NYAY (Nunyatam Aye Yojana) ie Minimum Income Guarantee scheme. Given that the Congress President Rahul Gandhi has promised that there will be no increase in taxes for the middle class and no withdrawal of existing major social welfare programmes the question is, in what way this can be done?
The World Inequality Lab, a group of economists based at the Paris School of Economics has predicted a probable way of getting the necessary funds. As the income inequality in India has reached an all time high, it says that the rich should be taxed to fund the NYAY. A two per cent tax on the total wealth on households owning more than Rs 2.5 crore of wealth would yield Rs 2.3 lakh crore or 1.1 per cent of GDP. This will affect only the top 0.1 per cent of households and leave out 99.9 per cent households.
This is not only the probable way but the best way of doing it. The super rich of our country are taxed much less than their counterparts in other countries that have achieved high ranks in human development. Moreover, inequality is much higher in India. According to the 2019 Oxfam Inequality Report, the wealth of the top nine billionaires in India is equivalent to the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of our population. Imagine that a balance can now stand in a perfect equilibrium holding only 9 Indians at one end and 67 crore Indians at the other!
In such a scenario, a little more tax for the super rich will bring justice and equality. Moreover, even the rich will be benefited by this scheme. Extra money in the hands of the rich will go to either Indian or foreign banks. But for a poor family whose family income is less than Rs 12,000, the extra amount of Rs. 6000 per month will go straight to the market and benefit the market players. The Nyay money will act as a bridge between the surplus farm production and the hungry malnourished Indians. Thus, it will bring smiles both to farmers and the poor people of our country.
On the Nyay scheme, well known economist and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan says that it is a doable and a scheme well worth considering. He says it is a misreading of the scheme by the critics who claim this will make people not to work at all. On the contrary, this scheme will indeed energize the poor people of our country with confidence, nutrition and motivation to fight depression, malnutrition and widespread diseases like anaemia and tuberculosis.
It is a good idea to directly transfer the money to the bank account of a female member of a family as far as possible. It will minimize the money going to the alcohol market as only 2 to 5 per cent of Indian women consume alcohol and Indian men use alcohol 9.7 times more than Indian women.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Via email