Evidence that independent India’s misguided adoption of Soviet-inspired socialism was a monumental mistake that devastated the Indian economy, is accumulating by the day. The prime objective of socialism is to reduce, if not entirely eliminate, income and wealth inequalities within society. Yet according to several reports (Oxfam, Wealth Tracker India), after 79 years of neta-babu socialism, India’s wealthiest 1 percent control 40 percent of national wealth and top 10 percent control 60 percent. Quite obviously Indian socialism has not delivered. Despite this there’s no shortage of learned academics and politicians who fault captains of industry rather than this bankrupt ideology, which has transformed India into perhaps the world’s most inegalitarian nation.

The flaws and lapses of neta-babu socialism are exposed by the self-serving establishment’s neglect of primary education, accorded high priority in all socialist countries, especially China and Russia. As regularly reported by the independent Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey, over 50 percent of class VIII children in rural government schools can’t read class III texts or solve simple sums.

The plain truth is that Indians don’t rue income inequality as much as inequality of opportunity which eight decades of socialism, instead of obliterating — as promised — has entrenched. It’s well-known that people of humblest antecedents succeed in business, academia and politics world over given the merest chance in terms of half-decent education and opportunity. The on-going IPL cricket tournament is replete with stories of boys (and girls) spotted by unsung talent scouts — God bless them — and given formal coaching in rudimentary academies who have taken on formidable global batters and bowlers with confidence and aplomb.

The fault dear Readers is not in our stars, but in the entrenched neta-babu brotherhood which pays lip service to socialism, but denies equality of opportunity to the world’s largest child and youth population, even as complacent academics and the middle class remain mere bystanders.