While hearing a case on the right to shelter for homeless individuals in urban areas, Supreme Court of India Justices B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih questioned the fundamental purpose and justifications of government welfare programs. Justice Gavai remarked, "Unfortunately, due to these freebies, often announced just before elections—such as the 'Ladki Bahin' scheme for women and others—people are unwilling to work. They receive free rations and money without doing any work." The justices further argued that welfare programs providing free rations and financial assistance discourage people from working. The bench asked, "Rather than integrating them into the mainstream and encouraging them to contribute to national development, are we not creating a class of dependents?" They suggested, "Would it not be better to make them part of the mainstream society and enable them to contribute to the nation's progress?". Calling the working poor a "class of parasites" is a distorted and unjust portrayal.
These views and opinions of the Supreme Court judges reflect a deep-seated class bias, further reinforced by ruling-class propaganda that falsely portrays the working poor as unwilling to work due to welfare schemes. Such arguments are not only empirically weak but also represent a distorted form of justice within a capitalist and feudal society fundamentally structured on exploitation, inequality, and injustice. It is also a strategy to dismantle the welfare state by cutting welfare budgets, which remain a lifeline for many working poor in both rural and urban India.
Who is the Class of Parasites, My Lords?
Working people do not live by exploiting other’s labour. So, working poor are not the class of parasites. Working poor beautify our cities but they do not have time to enjoy any free time in a park that they develop. They build homes, hospitals, schools, colleges and universities but their children do not have access to good schools and health care facilities. They can’t even afford food they produce due to gap between minimal wages and market price of everyday necessities. Even gods and goddesses can’t help working poor under a capitalist society which is fundamentally based on exploitation of working people and nature.
The working poor build the parks, homes, flats, and high-rise apartments that shape urban landscapes, yet they cannot afford to live in them. The real estate market inflates prices to exorbitant levels, forcing them into inhumane, filthy, and uninhabitable slums. This capitalist system creates alienating conditions where workers are separated from the very structures they construct, all to sustain a market that prioritises profit over human dignity of life.
My Lord, working poor cook, clean in your homes and toilets and design your garden where you enjoy life in leisure with your family. Where do the working poor go, My Lord? They sleep on the streets, roadside footpaths, under flyovers, in abandoned places, at railway stations, bus stops, in unfinished homes and under the sky in all weather conditions. The working poor were forced out of their rural lives and livelihoods after the economic reforms of 1991, which deepened the agrarian crisis and dismantled the rural economy. The working poor became migrants within their own country, criminals in their own slums, and suspects in the eyes of their own government and police. This inhuman condition was not of their own making, but the result of a state and government that serves the capitalist class while neglecting the working masses.
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has acquired over 5,286 acres of industrial land in Maharashtra, valued at Rs 2,200 crore. This strategically located land in Navi Mumbai was sold at a price lower than that of a kilogram of tomatoes per square foot. Can the working poor access urban land at the same price? Is it possible to create a similar pricing model for them? If such conditions were created, working people could build their own homes and would no longer have to rely on welfare budgets for the homeless.
For the last five years, the Modi government has written off Rs 9.9 trillion in bank loans to corporates. This reflects how Indian governments continue to align with the corporate class, while gradually abandoning the working poor in the name of boosting economic growth. The latest 2024 Budget, presented by the Modi-led BJP government, has reduced corporate tax rates for both national and global corporations, while the working poor continue to pay taxes in their everyday lives, through value-added tax on everyday essentials. Private oil corporations and private electricity distribution companies exploit the working poor on a daily basis, with the support of the government.
Such a crony capitalist system prevents the creation of job opportunities and employment with decent working conditions. Without good working conditions, universal education, and healthcare, it is impossible to build the capacity of migrant urban workers. So, dismantling of crony capitalism is central to the empowerment of poor and working people in the country.
Working people patrol the streets as police, protect the borders as military, and make significant contributions to the development of their country by paying taxes, building roads, schools, industries and universities. The struggle of the working class played a key role in ending British colonialism and establishing India as a constitutional, secular, and liberal democracy, which also led to the formation of the Supreme Court. The chair in which you sit, My Lord, to deliver justice, is a product of working-class labour as well.
Who are the parasites my Lord?
The true parasites are the ruling and non-ruling elites who profit by exploiting the labour of the working people, sustaining an exploitative capitalist system built on the basis of servitude and subjugation of both people and the planet. Therefore, the views of Justice B.R. Gavai and A.G. Masih on the working poor and their welfare are not only abhorrent but represent a reactionary totality of ruling and non-ruling class perceptions. Such views deliver a perverted form of justice, rooted in class bias.
Justice Gavai acknowledges his working-class origins by stating, 'I come from an agricultural family. Because of the freebies announced in Maharashtra just prior to elections, agriculturists are not getting labourers.' Such statements are not only empirically flawed but also reflect the 'lumpen working-class consciousness' that Justice Gavai exhibits. The gap between class origin, class consciousness, and class location gives rise to individuals like Justice Gavai, who betray their working-class roots by labelling working people as a class of parasites. The views of Justice Gavai are not an individual aberration; many judges share similar thoughts and ideas rooted in class bias, which form the foundation and functioning of the judiciary in India today. Prison for poor and profit for rich is the systemic justice.
Justice Gavai also made depoliticised comments by advising senior lawyer Mr. Prashant Bhushan, saying, 'Don't make a political speech here. We won’t allow our courtrooms to be turned into an arena for political battles... How can you say that compassion is shown only for the rich? Even towards the government, how can you make such a claim?'
My Lord, laws are created through politics and executed by the judiciary. Therefore, laws are not apolitical principles. It is naïve to make depoliticised statements that align with the needs of crimson capitalism, which actively discourages the politics of progressive societal transformation free from crime. There would be no need for courts and judges if capitalism did not exist. Capitalism itself produces crime and produces courts to fight crime and protect itself. Perhaps the judges of the Supreme Court fear challenging capitalism because it might render them unemployed. Therefore, upholding the capitalist views of the ruling class and non-ruling elites, which label the working poor as parasites, is an easier option.
Justice based on biased perceptions of working people is not true justice, but a perverted form of justice rooted in prejudice against the poor. In this context, class, courts, capitalism and justice moves together where working poor suffer and rich buy their justice in a marketplace called judiciary. So, the struggle for justice is a fight to expand class consciousness grounded in science and secularism, aiming to educate both the people and the judges simultaneously. Justice is not a product, but a condition, a process and a principle where equality, liberty, and solidarity move together, free from any form of discrimination or exploitation.
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