Published 12:30 IST, April 20th 2020
Kamal Haasan raises 5 questions 're-imagining India' & 'Superpower' in post-COVID world
Kamal Haasan raised 5 questions 're imagining India' in phase of economic darkness post COVID-19, and highlighted importance of healthcare, and other factors.
- India News
- 4 min read
Kamal Haasan has been vocal with his views, many even critical of the government in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Makkal Needhi Maiam chief has now raised questions that could play a major role in ‘reimagining India’ in the phase of ‘economic darkness’ during the worldwide crisis. The actor-politician raised five questions in a the form of a letter that he shared on Twitter.
Haasan started by expressing delight at the positive reception of his previous letter to the government, and urged citizens to express their views, calling it a ‘shame’ for not exercising their rights. He also hoped that the state governents working with each other and the Centre, was a ‘precedent’ that becomes a norm and helps tide over other challenges like water crisis, pollution, migrants woes, women’s safety, communal violence and more.
The first point the veteran raised was healthcare. He rued how India allocated only 1 per cent of the GDP towards healthcare, while giving 2 per cent for defence allocation, something he felt was a factor for 1.6 million deaths every year. Giving the example of USA that spends 8 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively, he wrote that it was a ‘pity’ that India continues to see defence as ‘more newsworthy proposition’ than healthcare.
Haasan felt India needs to allocate an epidemic preparedness budget. “As aspiring superpower with a vast human capital as its biggest strength cannot afford to be off the healthcare target by a big margin,” he wrote.
The second question Kamal Haasan raised was to ‘make agriculture great again’. He shared that with the possibility of there being lesser urban jobs for the migrants after COVID-19, it was time for the state leaders to create employment for them. He rued about India’s agricultural output being half of China, though India was the second-largest exporter of agricultural produce.
He urged for the building of a ‘green plus revolution’ that should convert parts of agricultural for allied enterprises like processing, logistics, accelerate productivity and boosting of agro-based MSMEs. He added that with agriculture employing 80 per cent of all active women in India, the revolution could turn out to be a shot in the arm for them.
The third point he raised was to ‘Bring India’s vast informal sector into the formal fold’. He compared the section of India’s informal sector, of 80 per cent, to that of countries of 14-20 per cent in countries of Europe and America, and termed it ‘mind-boggling’ to ignore the efforts of the sector.
“Bringing India informal workers under the formal fold must become the biggest national exercise that the government needs to undertake in the near future,” the letter read. He stated that it will not just boost the morale of the workers, but also lead to enhanced tax collection, that can be used to improve infrastructure. Haasan also urged that housewives be given a ‘job status’ and a universal income guarantee will give a boost to their savings.
The fourth point was ‘correction in income inequality and poverty alleviation’. The actor-politician termed it as a ‘collective failure’ that the migrant workers tried to head back home after not being to afford a meal or a roof on their heds. He termed the ‘relief measures’ as ‘mere afterthoughts’ and that empowering the ones at the bottom was the way to reduce the inequality of 10 per cent of the population owning 77 per cent of the country’s wealth.
The last point he raised was of ‘This could be India’s moment’. Kamal Haasan felt that the pandemic offered India its ‘ biggest opportunity to emerge out of its shadows and correct the many wrongs of the past’.
He said that he wished to reimagine his state Tamil Nadu as an ‘enterprising but egalitarian culture with a stric vigil towards the health and economic needs of every individual’. He added that if every state did its bit and helped other states, ‘the day won’t be far when India leads the world into a new era of super health, super equality and super prosperity.’
“It’s time we reinvent the word superpower, India’s pipe dream for decades. Let’s be a Universal thought leader, to put into parlance, a Vishwa guru and for all the right reasons," he concluded.
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Updated 12:30 IST, April 20th 2020