What does the persistence of poverty in the country prove? They have ceaselessly been launching repackaged anti-poverty programmes since the very beginning and till 1991 they experimented with all the tools of socialism and despite that a very substantial number of people in India still suffer conditions which are horrendously subhuman. Persistence of poverty in a society is the sure sign of the prevalence of feudalism informing the operating philosophy and practices. Logic is very simple and faultless - if there is poverty, there must be feudalism. The mooring and make of all the policies is essentially feudal. They basically follow the policy of patron-client relationship in beguiling disguises. Leftism lifts feudalism from the grounds to the lofty heights of nation-state. In other words, leftism nationalises feudalism. Leftists are on their way out but we have to fight a long battle against leftism. We urgently need to upgrade our systems to the full fledged market economy. We must realise that there is no escape from this binary - feudal fiefdom or free market.
- Niraj Kumar Jha
