Oxfam shows that the richest one percent

of people in India

and remember it has 1.3 1.4 billion

people in that country

the richest one percent own 40.5 of the

total wealth

in 2020 India had a hundred and two

billionaires

today it has a 166.

the pandemic may have killed huge

numbers of Indians as well as people

around the world

but it made more billionaires in that

country

40 of the wealth created in India

between 2012 and 2021 went to the top

one percent

all right 40 percent of the wealth

created in those eight years nine years

went to the top one percent

over that same period of time

only three percent of the total wealth

created

went to the bottom 50 of that population

okay at the same time

64

two-thirds of the taxes raised in that

country came from that bottom 50 percent

all right what does this mean it means

that India shows the same extreme

inequality that you have in the United

States and in many other rich countries

and why am I telling you this

besides that even Oxfam which has seen a

lot found this level of inequality in

such an otherwise poor but emerging

economy

it called it quote obscene

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a word I would attribute to the United

States for the same reasons but why am I

talking to you about this

India was a colony the most important

Colony the British Empire ever had more

responsible for the wealth accumulated

in India in England than any other part

of the British Empire

it was an enormity

it fought very hard

from in the 19th century and right up

to Mahatma Gandhi's leading it into

Independence after World War II

it fought for and won an independence

that inspired people around the world

however

Independence politically for a former

colony

is clearly not enough

because what it did was enable

the same capitalism that produced

inequality in the countries that

colonized

to continue and do the same in the

countries that were colonies of the

colonizers

the inequality grotesque in UK today is

replicated in India

to break out of the horrors of

colonialism

the greatest of the leaders of

Independence knew that getting

Independence politically governing

yourself

however important was only half the

battle you had to also change the

economic system because if you didn't

you'd replicate in your own country what

you had to fight against in the

colonizer

that's why the most important leaders

for Independence and let me name four of

them I could

pick many more Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam

Nelson Mandela in South Africa Mao

taetong in China

and subhas Chandra Bose in India

all argued you have to go beyond

capitalism as well as beyond your

Colonial status within capitalism or

else the system will resurge inside your

independent country Oxfam statistics

about India prove how right

those radical leaders of Independence

movements were