As a one-time resident of Calcutta - that is, in the days before the city changed its name and culture - I was, like the rest of my family, the bemused owner of a ration card. This rectangular card bore my name and address and entitled me to a certain quantity of weevil-laden rice or atta and patently adulterated cooking oil and kerosene at generously subsidised prices from a designated Fair Price Shop.
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In all the years that we owned these documents, I do not recall my family ever actually using them. Rice, atta and cooking fat came from the local market nearby, though we may have bought our quota of kerosene off the ration quota to fuel the hurricane lanterns during the long power cuts.Mostly, the cards were "pooled" by the household help to extract what they could from the dank and unprepossessing ration nearby. These shops appeared to be permanently short of supplies, a truly miraculous shortage given the steadily surging procurement of food grain by both the state and central government.
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Thus, the ration card became an omnibus document that was vital for things other than its original purpose. It was needed, for example, to access services such as telephone or gas connections, open bank accounts, apply for admission to institutes of higher education, register on the electoral rolls and so on. This was, after all, in the days before the proliferation of driving licences (with cars so hard to come by, few people needed licences to drive them), passports (only a minuscule number of people travelled overseas), voter ID cards and Aadhaar numbers (the product of today's wunder-technology).
True, the rules have since changed and other documents are accepted as "proof of address" and ration card deliveries are linked to the poverty line. But in the heyday of the ration card system, the number issued consistently outnumbered the number of poor people who actually relied on subsidised food provided by the government and, sadly, rarely got enough of it.
The ration card also became, like the illegal electricity connection, a lucrative source of rent for politicians. In West Bengal, for instance, the ration card became a desperately sought-after document by refugees from Bangladesh in the seventies looking to establish legitimate residence in the city and avoid returning to their troubled newly-independent country. It was a need that enabled the visible wealth creation of many a small-time political thug.
The ration card, then, is a good example of the Kafkaesque quirkiness that characterises the Indian state. Middle and upper middle class Indians were compelled to unwittingly perpetuate a system that even the most socialist politician will concede has done little to solve poor people's nutrition needs. And ironically, the equalising effect on society that the universal delivery of subsidised government services achieved in, say, post-war Europe has consistently eluded India.
It was the imperatives imposed by economic reform that started changing perceptions. The illogic of delivering subsidies to the non-needy has, finally, gained some degree of traction with the public. This has created conditions for a creeping reversal of petroleum-product subsidies, for example, and rural electricity rates without any noticeable rise of revolutionary protest. The Aadhaar number and concept of targeted subsidies to the genuinely needy have just about acquired a precarious toehold in public perception. Indians were grudgingly learning the wisdom of paying the economic cost - or a larger portion thereof - of the public services they consumed.
This U-turn in the public discourse took the best part of two decades. It took Arvind Kejriwal less than a month to resume the old race to the bottom. His party's promise of efficient, honest governance was the reason it attracted so many votes in Delhi. But this part of the Aam Aadmi Party's manifesto is yet to manifest itself. Instead, it is AAP's slashing of water and power tariffs, without a modicum of effort at targeting them to the needy, that has generated unhealthy competition among states ahead of the general elections. Maharashtra and Haryana, two of India's more prosperous states, have already emulated Kejriwal in cutting power rates, and several other states are thinking on similar lines.
The irony of this is that Khaas Aadmis may exercise their franchise for cleaner governance that will go such a long way towards equalising and enhancing wealth-creating opportunities. Instead, they're probably going to see themselves being wooed with entitlements they don't need.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper