NEW DELHI: Referring to a remark made by Supreme Court Justice BR Gavai on 'freebies' during a case hearing, member of the Polit Bureau of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Brinda Karat has written an open letter to him requesting the judge to reconsider his observations.
"The poor should not be stripped of their dignity by comments reportedly made by the highest court of the land," her letter read.
Karat, former Rajya Sabha MP, said that welfare schemes are a constitutional requirement for social and economic justice in our country, which is ranked among the most unequal societies in the world.
"Your comments do not do justice to the hardworking women of India. Nor do they recognise the hard struggle that the labouring people of India face for survival because of rampant unemployment, precarious nature of work available and low wages. The poor should not be stripped of their dignity by comments reportedly made by the highest court of the land...I would request you to kindly reconsider your comments," her letter stated.
On Wednesday, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih observed that people were not willing to work as they were getting free ration and money."Rather than promoting them to be a part of the mainstream of the society by contributing to the development of the nation, are we not creating a class of parasites?" Justice Gavai said.
In the letter, Karat said that the reported comments published widely in the Press may prejudice social opinion against those receiving what you have referred to as 'freebies.'
She added that the “Ladki-Behen scheme” presumably refers to the direct cash benefit transfer of between Rs 1,000-2,000 by nine state governments, expected to increase to at least 12, going by pre-poll promises.
"You have reportedly said that because of this money, people—in the case of women related schemes, it would be women --are not willing to work. This is factually incorrect since the large majority of women are already working—doing unpaid work—in the domestic sphere and also often unpaid work in family enterprises, including in agricultural operations. So the issue here is not that they are not working, but that they are working without any remuneration," Karat mentioned.
She further explained that, on average, Indian women spend 7.2 hours daily on unpaid domestic work and this works out to around 50 hours a week.
"For women doing remunerated work outside the home, the burden of domestic work adds to the number of hours she works a day...According to an SBI survey of 2023-24 if the extent of women’s unpaid work is monetised it would amount to a whopping 22 lakh crore rupees a year which was estimated to be around seven per cent of the country’s GDP that year," she wrote.
She added that, "This unpaid work contribution of India’s women, which is a key to family survival, is among the highest in the world. This work by women is socially unrecognised and demeaned as “women not working.” Regretfully your reported comments add to this notion. The stipend to women through these schemes, though meagre and inadequate may be considered social compensation as a right, not largesse or a freebie."
The Communist leader also said that it is another matter that political parties may cynically manipulate a right as a benefit, for narrow electoral considerations.
"To criticise the practice of this or that political party launching a scheme just before elections to get the female vote is understandable. But to accuse women of “not being willing to work” because of these schemes is not factual and an injustice to women," Karat stated.
In the letter, she also said that the so-called freebies are poor compensation for the absence of implementation of minimum wages and other workers’ rights.