How can they listen if they are hypnotized?

"This is the power of story-telling, or narratives: keep repeating the same thing and there's a chance it might become a truism," wrote R Singhal. The narrative is that "Demonetization, a bold and historic reform has ensured clean money and a cleaner economy. It has resulted in greater formalization and has pushed the direct taxes in the right direction," said Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Most people would agree that demonetization was a disaster for all sectors of the economy. "Significantly, millions of farmers were unable to purchase seeds and fertilisers ahead of the Rabi season due to this. The smaller farmers in particular, who rely on cash to make purchases, were left stranded as virtually all the cash they had in hand was suddenly illegal tender." A large proportion of people who file income tax returns do not pay tax. "In AY13 (Assessment Year), only 43.6% of the income tax filers paid income tax. In AY19 this had jumped to 59.5%," wrote V Kaul. Interestingly, "The salaried income declared jumped from Rs 6.27 trillion in AY13 to Rs 20 trillion in AY19, an increase of 220%. On the other hand, the business income declared during the same period has jumped from Rs 4.1 trillion to Rs 9.3 trillion, an increase of around 127%." If total business income in India is only Rs 9.3 trillion in an economy of Rs 203 trillion, it means that business activity in India is pathetically low, which means that the private sector is not creating jobs and most salaried jobs are in government. The Seventh Pay Commission increased salaries of government employees so much that the lowest grade earns more than the threshold for income tax, if we add Dearness Allowance at 17%. In the US, corporate profits in the second quarter of 2019 was over $1.8 trillion, which would come to $7.2 trillion for the whole year, while total salaries earned was around $17.5 trillion in 2018. Politicians and civil servants in India are convinced that millions of people are hiding their incomes to evade income tax. "According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2019, just 1.8% of Indians have assets worth more than Rs 100,000 (about Rs 7 million), which is less than what a three-bedroom flat would cost in a big city," wrote an editorial in the Mint. If we take the current circle rates, which is the minimum rate for calculating stamp duty on sales of real estate in Delhi, it is obvious that it is much less. It is true that the government creates narratives to bluff the people. What is worse is that it has convinced itself of its bluff and is not willing to listen to reason, no matter how logical, wrote Prof K Basu. If the government has hypnotized itself there is no way to wake it up. Apart from an explosive crash of the economy.