Budget 2019: FM Nirmala Sitharaman recited a Tamil poem in her budget speech, here’s what it meant...

On translation, the verse is learnt to be an instruction manual to elephant owners. Loosely translated, ‘Yaanai Pukka Pulam’ advises farmers and elephant owners, to tie their paddy harvest into smaller bundles, in order to let the animal feed on it, in regulated quantities, which would, in turn, last several days. “But if the elephant were allowed to graze freely,” the poem says, “it will only destroy all the crops.”

Sitharaman would go on to make an analogy between the elephant and India’s tax collection, calling for good leaders to exercise prudence and restraint when collecting taxes, lest India turns into Pisiranthaiyar’s poetic elephant and end up destroying the ‘crop’ — or in this case, the country’s economy.

The finance minister went on to propose a 3 percent increase in the surcharge for those with an annual income of between Rs 2 and 5 crore, and a 7 percent increase for those with an annual income greater than Rs 5 crore. Sitharaman left other income tax slabs unchanged.