Managed to watch the much-awaited Tamil movie 'Kanthasamy' starring Vikram and Shriya. Touted as a stylish flick with a social message, the movie is a good time pass. It is a movie on black economy and how the hero, like Robin Hood, uses his brain and skills, to help bridge the huge disparity between rich and poor.
Ok, this post is not going to be the review of the movie. It is more on the core social problem that the movie is trying to address. In my opinion, the movie takes a myopic view in concluding that "money", "rich people" and "black economy" are the reasons for poverty.
Poverty is the most difficult social problem, in fact, the core of all the social evils. In my opinion, there is poverty / poor people because of 3 major reasons (in descending order of priority):
- Poor people themselves
- People don't make an earnest effort to come out of poverty - due to either laziness or accepting it as fact of life. (The 3rd reason could be lack of opportunity, which is more related to #2, #3 below). Just to give an example, many beggars or slum-dwellers do so because they DECIDE to do so.
- The lack of effort stems from ignorance, which in turn boils down to lack of education. The ultimate culprit of poverty! (By "education", I didn't mean just going to school - I meant a combination of "Practical knowledge", "Learning", "Exposure", "Skill development", "Removing Ignorance")
- Government, Social & Political Structure
- Politicians don't want people to come out of poverty and their ignorance, as people becoming intelligent would endanger their existence. And this could be one of the reasons why many of the governments and politicians don't make any drastic measures to improve the current state of affairs.
- Second is a structural problem. It's an age long, classic debate on "Socialism" Vs "Capitalism". Some people believe that "Socialism" could be the elixir to solve the problem of poverty. If things have to be distributed equally, there is never going to be wealth in the truest sense. There needs to be incentive for people's hard work, efficiency and constant strive for improvement. At the same time, I don't believe that a pure play capitalism is the right way to go. The right mix, as they say - a "right" regulated free market, will be the life saver. And yeah, it's not easy to get the "right" structure but I feel our governments does a very poor job in getting a reasonable structure.
- Rich people / Business Organizations
- This is what Kanthasamy movie is talking about. Illegal hogging of money and resources by few greedy people - They evade tax, exploit human and natural resources. While it's clear that black economy is not good for the overall economic system of the country (and in its worst form could cripple the entire economy of the country), it's a bit debatable that it IS the cause for economic disparity:(a) Significant number of "poor" people are involved in the activities related to black economy (b) With its poor execution capabilities, sometimes you feel a private player could better utilize the resources than as Taxes in Government's hands. (Not here to argue that Taxes are to be evaded / abolished. No debate at all on the existence of "Government" and "Taxes" as its financial means of existence - Just a thought to counter the argument that black economy is the cause for poverty). But yes, fixing this would help reducing poverty given that #2 is fixed.
It's the killer combination of these 3 that makes any practical solution very difficult to implement in our country. Ideally, we 3-way approach is needed to uproot poverty completely.
However, we should appreciate what the movie says in the end - Rich people / organizations should do more social / charity work - An excellent example is adopting villages. Yes, very practical solution! And for that matter, we know lots of socially responsible organizations like Infosys, Wipro, ICICI, Microsoft, Berkshire Hathaway, Ford etc. It's important that more organizations involve actively in CSR activities - not just for the sake of name, but with a real intention.
