By Col Anil Alagh (Retd)
There was, and continues to be, much hullabaloo since our super cool FM laid the budget on the Table of the House last month … and knowingly or unknowingly laid the honest taxpayers … low. While some call it halwa and others khichdi, these delicacies are far from the taxpayers’ mind. Yes! The same Indian taxpayer, who is a superior clone of the famed comic character, Captain Marvel … despite the fact that he wears his innerwear with the 15% GST tag on the inside.
For the confused souls in this country, the taxpayer is the real ‘Annadatta’ … and in the case of ladies … they are the real ‘Maa Annapurna(s)’. The elected polity strips the innocent hardworking taxpayer to shreds, clothes him in GST, puts a toupee of Income Tax on his head, and then puts the genteel gentleman (or lady) on a pedestal for the pigeons to have a comfortably compliant, GST-free ‘sulabh shochalya’. The 80 crore Indians (now maybe 80.5) getting free or subsidised rations, the farmers enjoying subsidies and tax havens in their luxurious lifestyles, the folks getting Rs 2-5 lakhs every time their kith and kin decide to drink ‘local for vocal’ and kick the nearest bucket, or blatantly encroaching the environment and getting compensation when nature hits back, and endless others, including politicians disbursing freebies, while hidden behind the façade of ‘secular samaj sewa’ with the taxpayers hard earned monies … it’s a parody of historic proportions.
Please be assured that I am not a disgruntled old fauji or senior citizen. The monies spent on infrastructure development, the Ayushman initiatives, our space programme, and many others in the last 10 years especially, make my heart swell in pride. But, here again, what do I, as the Annadatta get back? Nothing? I pay tolls at most pot-holed, water clogged highways. I pay through my nose for medicare, medicines, etc., etc. Give the taxpayer some privilege at least when you decide to strip him naked! Perhaps a small loincloth, with no GST on it?
Some of you who are not taxpayers may be feeling ‘guilt pangs’, as you read this. Please don’t! Please take a look at the famed ‘common man type’ sketch attached. Head to toe, like him, we are walking-talking 220% GST zombies, if we are worth our salt, carry our nationalism on our sleeve, and are living the Bohemian online off-reality lifestyle of Circa 2024.
As the nation completes 75 years of Independence, I feel a proud contributory 220% plus up to 30% Income tax, citizen. Age is just a number when you have to feed so many free-loaders behind the veil of misplaced secularism and solidarity. But … as a senior citizen and a semi-senile, but born panga-taker, I have decided to show my disapproval for the existing political dispensation (which, win or lose, I have been otherwise supporting hardcore since 1991, and
will continue to do so till my pyre is lit with 18% GST desi ghee).
Come this 15th August and I am going to deprive the beloved FM of at least 20% GST. And when I do, she or the ED will be able to do nothing about it. I am going to shave my head clean on this auspicious day, even as our finest PM in years, urges me to give more of my blood, sweat and all of my ‘moolah’ for countrymen who don’t give a hoot about the country.
Shave my head clean? How will that deprive the FM of 20%? Well, when my head gains independence from my 75 strands of silvery hair, hey Presto, I will no longer need to buy hair dye / fancy hair colour. That’s a neat 20% GST shaving … oops! saving, isn’t it? I urge you to all join me in the ‘bald and beautiful’ crusade and get at least some wicked pleasure by denying 20% frivolous earnings to our finance wizards (Baa-boos) … or should I call them the Taxpayers’ Dracula Dilemmas?! Rise my countrymen! Keep the candles for the darker days. Rise! Be Bold!
Be Bald this 15 Aug!!
On a serious note … 15 Aug is a few days away. Please remember ‘Har Ghar Tirangaa’ or for the Condo / Flatted-life folks, ‘Har Balcony Tirangaa’. Take pride in being a responsible and loyal Hindustani! Wear your nationalism on your sleeve. It’s the coolest unisex ornament to wear.
And remember to remind yourself each day with a sinister wicked smile … that our ever-alert SR Shylock and the ‘hafta gang’, somehow missed putting GST on it. Jai Hind!!
