Self-Reliance Costs A Pretty Packet

By Sushil Kutty

Okay Modi’s cabinet will give its approval. It cannot be disapproval. Modi’s word is final. Ask Nirmala Sitharaman, Union Finance Minister, she who cannot talk/tweet without hashtags @narendramodi and @PMOnarendramodi. It’s about a $265 billion economic stimulus package to rescue Covid-19 hit India. In Modi’s language, Bees Lakh Crore Rupayeh! The belief is the economic stimulus will extricate India out of the Covid-19 quagmire. And Modi outed it after a preamble that went on and on till it was beginning to irritate. If Shashi Tharoor’s English befuddles, Modi’s Hindi confounds.

The big question, though, is will the largesse reach the right people? The migrant workers. The Covid-19-delivered unemployed. The 28 states, the Union Territories? Prime Minister Narendra Modi is so stingy that he actually believed Rs 6000 a year was enough to feed millions of farmers and their families for 12 months. and pray tell where did Modi’s first economic stimulus package running up to Rs 1.7 lakh crore go, and to whom!

If it really did reach all the intended beneficiaries, there wouldn’t have been a run on inter-district and inter-state highways, and on the railway tracks, by migrant workers left to fend for themselves in urban centres where Modi and the BJP’s voters and bank-rollers can hold anybody to ransom if that anybody, poor sods, happened to have no money in the pocket or in the bank.

Such as Covid-19 rendered unemployed migrant workers and the slum dweller in the tens of thousands; the legions of domestic help from all over, people who had left home and hearth to eke out a living in Delhi and Mumbai, Gurugram and Pune; Chennai and Bengaluru and now unemployed because of the infection-fears Covid-19 spurs in normal people. Will Modi’s economic stimulus help such unwanted people?

Especially, when Covid-19 is still an enemy to reckon with. Modi made a good try to present old laundry in new Khadi-gram packaging. ‘Make In India’ in desi ‘Atmanirbhar.’ That probably explained the almost 25-minute preamble. For sure, people did not catch on early as to where the Prime Minister was heading for; for a time they even forgot where he was coming from!

By the time they realized, the news was already in locked down public domain that Narendra Modi was out with an almost $270 billion economic stimulus package and ‘children of India’ could look forward to not only getting rid of Covid-19 but also be the citizens of the most powerful ‘self-reliant’ nation on the planet.

But neighbour to neighbour the dialogue went this way: “Say dost, you think I will get a share of Modi‘s Rs 20 lakh crore?” Dost stared at neighbour dost, “Don’t know pal, is it that you too have no income coming after lockdown 1, 2, 3 and now 4 about to extend stay-at-home?” Yes. The migrant worker is not the only one half-hungry. Lots of other urban poor with no villages to go to are also tightening belts in Modi’s ‘atmanirbhar Bharat.’

The Hindi makeover of the Modi Government’s stillborn ‘Make in India’ initiative is largely an unknown entity. the devil is in the details. The fact that Modi either speaks in riddles or in rhymes did not help clear matters. Like be ‘vocal about local!’ Modi also pushes in a lot of variations of an alphabet in his speeches. This time it was the turn of alphabet ‘L.’ “The package will give fresh impetus to making India self-reliant with focus on land, labour, liquidity and law!”

Modi went on to say that the economic stimulus would mark the “beginning of bold reforms”, and would also “prepare India for global competitiveness.” That begged the question, what was India or rather Narendra Modi doing all these last six years? And what can India do with Covid-19 sitting on its shoulders?

Modi’s words of exhortation are great to announce stimulus but how much would it stimulate a people not able to survive into the next day? Invoking India’s ‘Golden Chiriya’ days does not work any longer. The past 1000 years are dead and gone. It’s the next year, month and week that need to be taken care of.

Can Narendra Modi lead India out of Covid-19 pandemic? Is he capable? Does Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman instill confidence in 1.35 billion if all she does and can do is to praise Modi and praise Modi and praise Modi? This fiscal’s budget is lying in shambles and we don’t know where we would be by next fiscal, and in what shape. Do you know? Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Nirmala Sitharaman! Like somebody not Modi-fan said, “There’s the whole issue of resources.” (IPA Service)