 Welcome to Dispatches from India, I am Swastika your host and let's take a look at some of the stories that we are bringing in for you today. Our first story is from Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh where thousands of workers are seen getting into trains and buses daily. The workers claim that they leave the villages as there is no possible opportunity for employment. This should be noted as Chief Minister Adityanath of this BJP run state claimed just earlier this year that the government has provided for 450,000 jobs since 2017 when the party came to power in the state. Have a look at this ground report. This company has a lot of work to do, they keep doing their own thing. There is no such company in Bundelkhand, if there was a company like this we would not have to go there. I am with you. There are four people. Where are you going? Five. Why are you going out? I am going because I can't find a job. I can't find a job, so I am going. You don't have a job? Yes. Why don't you have a job? I had a job as a farmer, so I got a job. But when I got a job, I got a job by earning two paisa lakha bachan. How long have you been working as a farmer? It has been four years. Sir, this is how it works. If they don't earn money from there, they give some money at home. So this is how it works. So you have seven or eight people at home? Yes. So all of them go out? Yes, all of them go out. How much do you earn in a day's labour? Sir, I am telling you that you will get 10,000 rupees a month for your food and drink. Have you ever tried to find a job here? Sir, I do find a job here, but I don't get a job. I got a job like this for two months, three months and 15 days. Then I came home. Have you ever had an emergency? Did you have to come home? Did you need anything at home and you couldn't come? No, I couldn't come. My father didn't come even then. Okay. He came later. He came later. Yes. How much do you earn a living here? What can I say? Mr. Yogi was very good. We used to see him in the corona pandemic. The people who are out here, if the company opens the industry, they will get the same rate of money here. Now he has come here for two or three months. He has worked for a few months. He has worked for the house. Now he has come, everything is done. He is preparing again. The state government of Tamil Nadu released a draft of its new resettlement and rehabilitation policy in early October this year. The government announced that the policy will focus on community engagement and areas where erstwhile slum dwellers will be resettled will have all the basic amenities such as healthcare and employment opportunities. However, experts and activists claimed that the policy totally fails to address the urban housing crisis. Neither the homeless population nor the large population living in rented accommodations in urban areas. We spoke with Kishore Kumar, a research scholar for a deeper understanding of the ghettoization of the urban poor. The housing crisis in Tamil Nadu is huge. And Tamil Nadu is also one of the most... I think Tamil Nadu is the most urbanized state in India. The very census number gives you 55%. But if you go beyond that, I think it will be 60%. So the housing crisis is quite huge in Tamil Nadu but this policy has nothing to do with it. This policy is very clear. It is only about evicting people. And you should ask the question why that is the case? Why are you not talking about homeless people? Why are you not talking about the housing crisis? Why are you just interested in evicting people? Then we have to look at it from a kind of global context because now particularly after the neoliberalism and after India opening up its economy the competition to attract foreign capital is quite huge. And the competition is not between Indian cities and Indonesian cities and Indian cities and other developing countries' cities. No, the competition is also between the cities within India. So then you have to show your city something that is like Singapore. Something that is like New York, right? Every time when a politician comes and says, let's say Singara Channel 2.4, we want to make our city like Singapore. The question that needs to be asked is why should Chennai look like Singapore? Why can't Chennai be like Chennai? Why it should look like Singapore? What is the point of it, right? It is not just to put in such a state. It is about giving a cosmopolitan character to your city and showing that this city can be something like your first world city. It will have all the facilities like first world city. And people just forget that the first world cities are for the rich in the first world cities. You go to New York, you see people who are living in pavements, homeless people, because that's how the city is constructed. And that is the case with most of the first world cities. So the idea here is also the same. And also the idea is not about evicting these people from the land. It's not about just fake settlement. It's basically evicting a certain kind of poverty in the inner city, right? You are not just evicting those people. You are evicting the entire character that the city is built with. So you are evicting them so that in the inner city, poverty will be visible. Now, in focus this week. After over one year of protest, the farmers have come out victorious in their fight against the government's attempt to privatise agriculture. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on November 19th that the farm laws will be repealed. However, the various farmers' unions collectively decided to keep on protesting until each of their demands are met, including a minimum support price for their produce and a compensation for 700 deaths of farmers during the protest. In a meeting between government representatives and those of the Samyukth Kisan Nourja affront with more than 40 farmers' unions on December 9th concluded with a written statement by the union government conceding to all the demands of the SKM. Farmers' unions have declared this a massive democratic victory and extended regards to all those who supported the 15th month long struggle. Here is a glimpse of the day. The government has agreed to all the demands of the farmers. After this, the farmers' union has made a meeting and announced the return of this union. Now, the Prime Minister has also agreed to the demands of the farmers and he has also said that some farmers were unable to understand the farmers' faces. Even though the farmers had agreed to the demands of the farmers the farmers had to bow down to Modi. They were doing a huge thing. They broke the government's rule. Modi's rule has been broken for a year. The struggle for freedom is not just for the SKM. There is no victory for Andolan. There is no struggle for the free law. There is no struggle for the MSP. We will continue to fight for it in this field. We say that the government should pay attention to the demands of the farmers otherwise we will come back to the field again. This victory is not just for the farmer's union but for the victory of 80 crore friends. Because I think that the biggest victory is to get a ticket in front of the government. I think that the MSP has been captured. With the name of the committee and the name of the MSP the issue of MSP has been put in the house again. But the happy thing is that we are going to get them repealed for all the three laws that have been passed. Andolan has done a lot of things. First of all, the farmers had to put in a lot of effort. Then the second thing is that they have closed the government. They have closed the government and it seems like Andolan will end. It won't take long. But as soon as the government ends, this Andolan has come new. Today, we are very happy. One year ago, Andolan went. Our training was also done. We got to learn a lot. Our Punjab friends got to learn a lot in Andolan. And with this, we are going to thank Modi that Modi has complained about the fight against Andolan. We had come first. We will go back first. We will go in the end. When we came, 16-kilometer-long people had built a house. There is one thing in my heart that when I go, the farmers, the farmers, the committee stage, then this road should be completely empty. I mean, brother Ravi, we will go in the end. We will go in the end. And we will invite everyone. And in the end, even if we make a mistake, don't forget those people who have been with us for a year and 13 days. Don't forget. Don't forget. Many people have sacrificed. Your channel is very heavy, brother. Those who have done so much, it is more than their heart. Now, this has very dire implications for the economy as this amount of concentration of wealth leaves very little for a large part of the country, which affects purchasing power as a whole. But it also has grave consequences for democracy. Now, how does democracy function when a small section has such a disproportionate hold over the country's wealth? Journalist Anandya Chakraborty analyzes this issue. The numbers are still very staggering because if you look at it, the top 10% of Indians, the top 10% he owned five times what the bottom 50% owned. And if we take the total wealth of the bottom 50% and compare it to what the top 1% owned, then the top 1% owned 1.7 times what the bottom 50% owned. That's the kind of disparity that we have in India. And if I look at what an affluent person in the top 1% owns compared to an average person in the bottom 10%. It's almost a thousand times. It is almost 1,000 times the annual earning compared to those who are at the bottom 10%. From 1951 to 1981, which we can call the period of Nehruvian socialism or Indira Gandhi's left turn in the 70s, the gap between the rich and poor actually narrowed. And if we take the 1981 to 2021 period, you see that the economic growth actually improved significantly. But what happened to the bottom 50%? The bottom 50% their control over wealth and productive assets has dropped sharply and the top 1% their control over productive assets has gained significantly. So what does that mean? That is this 1%, and if you extend it to 10%, then 2 thirds of the wealth is owned by the top 10%. But this 1% can actually control everything, not just productive assets like factories, offices, mines, ports, airports, power plants, not just them, but they can also control institutions. They with their money can control the media. They can manufacture concept. They can, by funding political parties, decide what politics is going to exist in the country. They can decide policies. So we've seen what happens when democracy is controlled by, or a nation state is controlled by that 1%. It kills democracy because the 1% moves everything towards them. They control media, they control the dominant ideologies, dominant ideas and the poor have no voice. And that is why we see that every media house, every public intellectual, every commentator says that these policies which have made the rich even richer, exponentially richer, increase inequality, these are the policies that are good. Reforms are good. Anything that helps the poor is bad and that is what is all around it. That is the core of the weakening of India's democracy. That is what has happened. And unless we realize this, unless we learn that we need to share more with the rest of India, our democracy cannot survive. Well that's all from us. Do keep watching People's Dispatch.