Justice Gavai’s comments on freebies overlook people’s struggle for survival: Brinda Karat

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat said the recent remarks on freebies by Supreme Court Judge Justice B.R. Gavai fails to recognise the struggle of India’s labouring class for survival in the face of “rampant unemployment, precarious nature of work and low wages”.

In an open letter to Justice Gavai on Friday (February 14, 2025), Ms. Karat urged him to reconsider his comments as they could prejudice social opinion against those receiving social benefits from the government.

Justice Gavai made the remarks on Wednesday while hearing petitions on the shortage of night shelters for the urban homeless in the national capital. During the hearing, he had asked whether untrammelled freebies lull the poor into a parasitic existence, depriving them of any initiative to find work, join the mainstream, and contribute to national development.

Social compensation

Ms. Karat said the remarks did not do justice to the hardworking women of the country. Speaking specifically on the direct cash benefit transfer to women by various State governments, including Maharashtra’s Ladki Bahin Yojana, Ms. Karat said that such stipend to women should be considered a “social compensation” and not “largesse or freebie”. She pointed out that on average, Indian women spent 7.2 hours daily on unpaid domestic work. This worked out to around 50 hours a week. For women doing remunerated work outside the home, the burden of domestic work added to the number of her daily working hours.

According to an SBI survey of 2023-24, if the extent of women’s unpaid work is monetised, it would amount to a whopping 22 lakh crore rupees a year, which was estimated to be around 7 per cent of the country’s GDP that year. “This work by women is socially unrecognised and demeaned as ‘women not working’. Regretfully your reported comments add to this notion.”  

On the issue of “free rations”, Ms. Karat pointed out that India had the largest malnourished population in the world. “It is for these reasons that concerned citizens and organisations have been pressing for additional items in the rationing system to ensure proteins and a more nutritious diet at affordable prices. In any case, no one can survive just on the free rations,” she said.