Opinion GOI’s answer to the age-old question: What is value?

So much of modern academic attention has been drawn to a fundamental question: What is value? There are values in the sense of moral values that underpin an individual’s ethical outlook; norms and rules determined by what a society holds dear; and, of course, how value attaches itself to commodities. But away from the academic to-and-fro, the “value question” which has flummoxed deans and doyens has been answered by the Government of India, via the inscrutable logic of the tax man.

Which has more value — a roti or a paratha? A roti is healthier, a paratha more stuffed — with ingredients and flavour. Most ordinary people would say, it’s a matter of taste. Perhaps, following this line of thought, the good people at Vadilal asked that their frozen paratha be taxed at 5 per cent (as rotis are) instead of 18 per cent. According to the GST appellate authority in Gujarat, however, the paratha is more valuable. For ontological questions, too, the GST Council has an answer: Is form more important or matter; is the superstructure more valuable than the base? If you go by pizzas, Karl Marx was wrong. According to GST rates: If you buy a pizza base separately, you’ll have to pay 12 per cent GST but since pizza toppings are not actual pizza, they will be taxed at 18 per cent. Then there was the question of whether Parachute coconut oil is an edible oil or beauty product because it’s used both for hair care and cooking.

Advertisement

Examples abound. With the stroke of a pen, some things are made more valuable in terms of economic cost — as with the paratha — and others are made available because they ostensibly uphold the values of a society (most items of religious worship are taxed at zero per cent). If only the best minds in universities could figure out how these decisions are arrived at, those feeling the pain of their arbitrariness might find some succour.