In print and online, we’ve gone crazy bouncing the zeroes around Satya Nadella’s potential pay-and perk-check. The Wall Street Journal says his base salary is 70 per cent higher than what the former Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, had drawn. If that figure was $700,000…work it out.
The point is: so what? Why does it seem as though we think only those who have the banknotes have the currency for ‘greatship’?
It’s not about the individual. It’s about the obscenity of salivating over salaries. We do it at work, we do it at home, we do it on college campuses. We tell our children, ‘see how much money she makes’, ‘learn from him how to multiply’, and ‘don’t be afraid to show it’.
What inspires this aspiration for more and more money and total indifference to the larger canvas painted over with hunger, homelessness, helplessness, hopelessness, disease, malnutrition, death? The reality of the majority is palpable, yet we ignore it. Nor is it a new phenomenon, the situation and the attitude. Is it an Indian thing, then?
In spite of its mammoth billionaire league, even US President Barack Obama has been forced to confront the reality of inequality in the US. Since 2008, the gap between large-scale joblessness in the US and the pay packets of top executives, particularly in banking and finance, has become starker than ever, leading to a wave of protests. Contrast that with the indifference to inequality here in India. It’s a conspiracy of silence, a refusal to take responsibility.
Last November, Switzerland voted on a referendum initiated by the youth wing of the Social Democrats to limit the pay of top executives to 12 times that of a company’s lowest-paid employees. And Switzerland counts among the richer nations of the world.
The proposal was rejected — for various reasons — but it’s at least on the agenda. In fact, Switzerland is considering voting on introducing a basic living wage of $2,800 a month from the State. That’s right, dollars a month. Work it out.
So, when the administration of ‘vibrant Gujarat’ declares that anyone earning more than ₹10.80 per day in rural areas and ₹16.80 per day in urban areas is above the poverty line, it stinks.
It’s time we cast our money-obsessed gaze downwards. It’s time to draw an ‘ameeri rekha’, and ensure that every individual, children included, has food, health, shelter, education and dignity.
Sandhya Rao, Senior Assistant Editor