Stock market gurus predict someday the Sensex will reach the one-lakh mark. The rally seems to never end. Everyone forgets that what goes up invariably comes down. In the meantime a poor India makes merry because the Sensex is rising. The media has joined this mirage-making along with punters and myth-makers. We have forgotten the real issues which are plaguing us. The Sensex is only a 30 shares’ index. According to the Hindu Business Line, only 3% percent of retail India’s savings are in equity or equity-related instruments. The other 97% Indians contend themselves with investing in debt and nearly-zero risk government products like National Savings Certificates and Public Provident Fund. The trend here is just the opposite of that in the equity markets and day by day, the government interest rates are dropping. So why and for whom is India shining?

Our poor have hardly heard of the share market. Yet the total value of the bourses is more than 150 times of our Gross Domestic Product. That means the markets can buy up India 150 times over if it so wishes. It is terrifying to know that most of the money in the markets is foreign. It is a sober thought that the Sensex shining does not truly even reveal the conditions of the Indian markets we see. Few days ago, the markets crashed because of perceived fears that foreign investment may curtailed in the future. Only when the finance-minister publicly assured everyone of not really being serious of banning foreign inflows, did the markets recover.

The media has quietly displaced national issues of importance with Sensex trivia. Nobody hears anything anymore of the starving poor, the various Bills placed in Parliament or even the life-details of our political leaders. This last shift is the surest sign that India has changed. We are now pandering to the reading tastes of the rich few who are riding the stock-market waves. It is only natural that we the poor of this nation join the media and financial whizzes in celebrating the Sensex. It is the huge companies which control everything in Indian lives today. The media houses too are often listed entities on the bourses.

In the old days, when the local feudal lord had a baby and gorged the boy with sweets, all the hungry peasants danced in the streets hoping some morsel will ultimately come their way. But believe me, in this new party; the new lords will give nothing to anyone. It is a party built on selfishness. Nobody who has not paid to the markets is invited.

Via: Hindu Business Line

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