Lately, a clip from the Tamil movie ‘Mersal’ has been doing rounds online in which the lead actor makes some senseless claims and comparisons. If anything, it just proves how little the filmmakers care about facts or about putting some effort into verifying their claims. It doesn’t take much time to do a quick search online to get the required information and it doesn’t take an economics expert to figure out that the comparisons made do not make sense at all. Let us do some fact checking with simple math.
Claim 1: Singaporeans pay 7% GST tax and get free healthcare (let us get back to free healthcare later) while Indians pay 27% GST tax and do not receive any kind of healthcare.
Facts:
Population of India:132 crores
Number of taxpayers: 4 crores
Percentage of taxpayers: 3% of the total population
Number of taxpayers: 4 crores
Percentage of taxpayers: 3% of the total population
Population of Singapore – 56 lakhs
Number of taxpayers – 17.6 lakh
Percentage of taxpayers – 30% of the total population
Number of taxpayers – 17.6 lakh
Percentage of taxpayers – 30% of the total population
References:
Do you see the difference? How can a Government get the money it needs to run a country with 1.3 billion population of which only 3% pay taxes? Furthermore, the director of the film comfortably ignores the fact that there are 4 different slabs in GST taxation system and picks the highest possible number of the four categories. He also ignores the fact that essential food items are completely exempt from GST. All he cares about is some Govt bashing and making people believe that they are being looted by the Govt at no fault of theirs. Well, here is the problem, GST of Singapore vs GST of India is not an apples to apples comparison. Usain Bolt running a 100m race in less than 10 seconds doesn’t mean we all can do the same. The other worrying part of the actor’s message in the film is the narrative of ‘What has the country done for you?’ instead of asking ‘What have you done for the country. Why is only 3% of population paying taxes?’. I am sure no filmmaker would come up with a script that would question such a low percentage of taxpayers. ‘Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.’ said John. F. Kennedy
Claim 2: About that ‘free’ healthcare in Singapore claim
No, healthcare is not free in Singapore! Do not make such ignorant and incorrect claims in movies! Singaporeans put aside 6-9% of their income into a ‘Medisave’ account that can be utilized later towards healthcare bills. Just because a person saved for an expense in the past doesn’t mean it is free. A quick search online will tell you if healthcare is free in Singapore or not, and the director of the film never cared about facts before making false claims in his film. A section of law students in Coimbatore has even offered Rs 1 crore to the producers of the film 'Mersal' and actor Vijay, if they proved that Singapore is providing free medical care.
References:
And to all those celebrities tweeting in solidarity with Vijay and Mersal makers, I would like to ask, ‘Do you support everything stated in a film regardless of it being incorrect information?’. Just because you happen to be in the same profession doesn’t mean that you have to come out in support of your fellow actors. Just do your research before you vouch for something! And to Farhan Akhtar who tweeted ‘How dare you Sir?’ in response to low IQ remarks made by a politician criticizing the film stars, I would love to prove you right! But, facts and numbers don’t lie! A person with decent IQ will not make films in an irresponsible manner thereby sending a wrong message to the general population.
At the moment, there is another set of people in Congress and other opposition parties who keep attacking BJP & PM Modi for anything and everything. In this case, they accuse BJP of attacking people’s freedom of speech. No, it is not an attacking people’s free speech, but it is a censoring blatant lies and misrepresentation of facts from a movie.
Please share this post if you choose facts over blatant lies!
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