By Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak
LONDON: Budgets are political visions with economic planning based on resource allocation and revenue generation to face the crisis, fulfil the needs and desires of citizens, and shape the path towards future prosperity of society. Modi’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech and her budget documents in the tablet made by a South Korean company and backed up in a tablet made by a Taiwanese company does not develop digital infrastructure. The presentation of budget in a tablet does not make digital India. The higher investment in health and education can only shape both agrarian and industrial revolution for digital India.
The abysmal social spending makes this budget as one of the worst in independent India. It shows lack of priorities and commitment for the people and their everyday needs. The government shows no commitment to invest in the people of India. The Modi led BJP government has failed the people of India yet again in the Budget 2021-21. It is a document of apathy. The budget lacks missions and visions to move India and Indians in the path of economic growth and human development.
The budget has failed to ensure health, education, employment and other essential welfare service to the people of India. The half-hearted documentation of data, time gaps, fictional accounts with dubious presentation in the budget makes it more as a propaganda document than a serious and trustworthy economic exercise to revive India’s growth story. But the budget doesn’t reveal the amount that Mr Narendra Modi is going to spend for his advertisements and propaganda.
In spite of all limitations, the Budget 2021 shows its unflinching commitment to neoliberal economic policy prescriptions shaped by the corporates and for the crony capitalist classes in India and abroad. The budget also shows the hollowness of so-called economic nationalism of RSS and BJP. The idea of deception is written within ideological narratives and political strategies of Hindutva quackery. There is neither anything bold nor any cure in it. The budget is a Hindutva quackery’s guide to economic recovery where the corporates profits and mass miseries are ensured.
This budget is another shock therapy to Indian economy and society to deepen the crisis further. There is no plan to fight poverty and unemployment in this budget. It truly upholds Mr Narendra Modi’s idea of minimum government for people and maximum support for his crony capitalist friends. He returns the favour to his corporate friends who support him with election expenses through electoral bonds. It is a corporate budget devoid of democratic accountability to the electorates. Like quacks, people still believe in Hindutva quackery and their aggressive propaganda that ruins India and Indians.
The budget will neither inspire demand nor fuel production and distribution. It will further intensify crises of availability and accessibility of essential goods and services. This budget will further marginalise people and ensure the deepening of poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, illiteracy, ill-health and economic crisis. These conditions of crises are essential requirements for the sustainability of Hindutva quackery. A combination of crisis trap created by conditions of poverty, ignorance and illiteracy produces Hindutva quackery in Indian politics, culture and society. The RSS trained Hindutva quacks hide their deceptive practices and ignorance by shouting aggressively about their power and skills in crowded streets, marketplaces and in remote villages. The Hindutva quacks use every opportunity to promote themselves as only alternatives.
The quacks hypnotise their victims by the sugar-coating propaganda skills driven by organisational networks and fear mongering propaganda. The RSS and BJP follows dictums of quackery in letter and spirit. The corporate mass media is their biggest asset to hide the arrogance and ignorance of Hindutva quackery. Indian population in hopeless conditions believe in Hindutva quacks led by Mr Narendra Modi. Indians are seeking relieve from their immediate pain and sufferings.
But Hindutva quackery does not want people to recover from pain and sufferings. The path of peace, prosperity, good health and education, scientific ethos, social harmony, secured employment and conscious citizens are perennial threats to very existence of Hindutva quackery in India. Therefore, Hindutva quacks shaped and led by the RSS and BJP are using every opportunity to stop the path of economic growth and social development in India. The indefinite conditions of crisis is a perfect condition for the Hindutva quacks to control, manipulate and dominate India and Indians for a long time.
History has witnessed to the limited life span of all quacks. All their quackery always bites the dustbin of history. It ends as soon as mass consciousness spreads. Mass consciousness and mass struggle against Hindutva quackery is the only hope for peace and progress in India. The future of Hindutva quackery will be no different in India. This budget reflects that Modi led BJP government is ignorant about basics of Indian economics, democratic politics and inclusive culture in India. The defeat of Hindutva quackery looks immanent and nearer.
(The writer Dr Bhabani Shankar Nayak, hails from Eastern Indian State of Odisha, Presently Teaches at University of Glasgow, London, UK and has 2 Decades of Teaching Experience in British Universities. Views Expressed are Personal).
