Kerala, we are told, is now the first state in India to be declared “extreme poverty-free.” It is a magnificent headline and, if true, a substantial achievement. The government deserves a grudging nod for this coordinated effort, for at least proving that moving people beyond the World Bank’s meagre $2.15-a-day benchmark is logistically possible.
Yet, one cannot help but notice this with only profound cynicism. Even as the state prepares its triumphant banners, voices from tribal heartlands like Wayanad are calling the whole exercise a hollow, administrative fiction. Activists argue that their communities still struggle for a single square meal, still exist in makeshift shelters without sanitation, and that the state’s meticulously ‘uplifted’ count fails to capture the raw, daily misery of the most marginalised. This is a fundamental flaw in our system that allows the most neglected to exist in a state of perpetual want, while the political class trades in grand, unverified declarations.
However, Kerala’s attempt must be seen as a necessary, if ultimately insufficient, endeavour. At least, the priorities appear to be right when one compares Kerala’s consistent focus on human development indices. Kerala’s achievements in education, health, and on a foundational level of social security are a stark contrast to the empty boasts of highly industrialised states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, or Uttar Pradesh. These economic behemoths flaunt colossal GDPs and produce billionaires at a rapid pace. Yet, their human development scores often reveal a brutal reality. The majority of their population lives in a subsistence-level existence. They are just an afterthought, and that too during the election times. Kerala, by contrast, has at least anchored its claim to glory in the fundamental dignity of its populace, a far more honest measure of progress than the mere size of its economy. A modestly prosperous state with people living in dignity is far better than a wealthy state with starving people; it is a moral and systemic failure.
But no single state’s success, however genuine, can insulate the nation from the structural disease consuming the entire country. India today is defined by a level of wealth concentration that has created a de facto economic caste system, more rigid and more exploitative than the colonial-era exploitation it replaced. The top one per cent of this country holds over 40 per cent of the total national wealth—a figure that should provoke not celebration, but sharp anger over the organised extraction of the nation’s economic output. We have built a Billionaire Raj where the fortunes of the few explode while the average Indian remains perpetually precariously balanced on the edge of ruin.
This structural decay is about to be accelerated by the twin engines of automation and Artificial Intelligence. The machines are coming for the predictable, low-skilled jobs that millions depend on. Our much-touted demographic dividend is about to curdle into a demographic nightmare. The jobs in manufacturing, logistics, and data entry are simply set to become obsolete. And the cruellest consequences of this algorithmic shift will fall squarely upon the rapidly expanding, often less-skilled, and less-educated youth population across vast swathes of North India. This massive influx of unemployable, angry, and economically desperate young men and women will create a social and political crisis of unparalleled magnitude, transforming our vibrant democracy into a volatile, chaotic landscape where every minor frustration is amplified. Politicians will feed the opium of religion and caste to these masses, and the results will be anyone’s guess.
It isn’t that the Union Government isn’t aware of the coming crisis. The strategy now seems to be providing many free ration schemes and subsidies, but no long-term goal to address the looming crisis. They throw a few kilos of grain to keep the lid on the cauldron of public anger, buying silence with handouts. The government allocates vast sums, close to Rs 14.45 lakh crore, in Central Sector Schemes and calls it ‘welfare.’ It is nothing but a cynical, short-term attempt to buy votes. But even this flimsy structure is crumbling. It is high time we admit the truth: the current model is not just flawed; it’s a failure. That is why the Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not a utopian dream, but a cold, hard necessity.
UBI is a direct, unconditional cash transfer—no middlemen, no complex forms, no political patronage. We already have a UPI scheme, and most of the Indians have bank accounts. It is a far more efficient way to transfer a basic income directly to the deserving than doling out rations through a leaky system.
The primary objection, as always, is fiscal cost. But we must be ruthlessly honest about where this money will come from: by a surgical culling of inefficient and regressive subsidies and, most importantly, by instituting a genuine, high wealth tax on the super-rich. We must redistribute a portion of the wealth that the state’s infrastructure and policies helped them amass.
UBI grants the common person dignity and agency—the only thing our current system systematically strips away. It is the financial cushion that allows a gig worker to save, a farmer to withstand a climate shock, and a low-wage labourer to escape an exploitative job to seek genuine skill development. It is the acknowledgement that a fundamental right to life must be severed from the unpredictable cruelty of the job market and blatant, usurious capitalism.
We cannot continue to take shelter in the rhetoric of GDP growth while the majority live under the constant fear of a single health emergency pushing them into destitution. We can’t be constantly pushing for economic growth like cancer, without establishing a genuine safety net by reclaiming a fraction of the nation’s wealth for the people who generated it. The need for a Universal Basic Income is the absolute, non-negotiable floor upon which the future of a stable, secure India must be built.
