• Prakash Pohare

The election of 2024 is around the corner. Modi’s (not BJP’s) government is working at the centre for the last 9 years. What happened to the economic policies of the Modi government in the last nine years?

The disastrous demonetisation in November 2016 wiped out around 86 per cent cash from the economy in a matter of hours. This destroyed the entire economy. The GST regime implemented in 2017 gave another major blow to the economy. Unorganized workers, farmers and agricultural laborers were hit the most by demonetisation. Lakhs of workers lost their jobs. There was a sharp decline in the GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2016-17. A clear sign of the economic slowdown is bank lending, which has hit an all-time low after demonetisation.

As the official reason for demonetisation, which was to curb terrorist financing and unearth black money, proved futile. Then the government announced that it had changed its objective. So, demonetisation was touted as the beginning of a cashless economy or an economy that minimizes the use of cash, but a look at the Cash-to-GDP ratio in actual figures shows that all cash is back in circulation.

Four years later in March, 2020, a nationwide Covid lockdown was suddenly announced at just four hours’ notice. The bankrupt Covid vaccine policy and the dire state of the public health system left millions in an unprecedented situation. The official estimate of Covid deaths in India by the end of 2021 by the Modi government was only 4 lakh 81 thousand, while the World Health Organization estimates that the figure will be 10 times more i.e. 47 lakh, which is the highest in the world. The prestigious British medical mouthpiece ‘Lancet’ has also estimated that the actual number of corona victims in India is 6 to 7 times more than the official number.

The recession caused by the pandemic has seen the number of India’s poor (those living on $2 a day or less as defined by the United Nations) more than double from 6 crores to 13.4crores in just one year, 2020. It is estimated that by the end of 2021, 15 to 20 crore people will fall into poverty. India contributed about 60 per cent of the increase in global poverty during the pandemic.

Now the government and the opposition parties should make a hue-and-cry over the increase in the number of deaths due to heart diseases and other diseases caused by the vaccine, but in that context, it has become clear from the silence of both, that they have already received their due share from the pharmaceutical companies.

The number of Indians in jobs was 44 crores in 2013, which has come down to 38 crores in 2021. In the eight years of the Modi government, there has been a direct decline of 6 crore jobs. But in the same period, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of people who can work and it has increased from 79 crores to 106 crores. Thousands of factories were closed due to recession. Due to non-availability, lakhs of people had to give up the hope of getting jobs and had to go back to the rural areas for survival. Even there, their life became difficult.

Talking about women, their proportion in jobs was 36 per cent in 2019, which had come down to 18 per cent even before the lockdown. In February 2021, this figure was only 9.24 percent. This highlights the dire state of employment for women.

The National Crime Investigation Board, which reports directly to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, estimates that being harassed by extreme debt, over one lakh farmers and farm laborers have committed suicide in India during the last eight years of Modi’s rule. The Modi government, which had claimed to double farmers’ income by 2022, did not double the income, but brought down the average monthly income from agriculture by 1.4 per cent from Rs. 2,855 to Rs. 2,816 during this period, and on top of that, the cost has doubled due to increase in the prices of agricultural inputs such as manure, fertilizer kits, diesel, tractor etc. The resulting suicide of millions of farmers and decline in real income from agriculture are the main symptoms of the Indian agrarian crisis.

During the Corona period, where the problems of the people were increasing, at the same time the prices of petrol and diesel were increasing almost every day. Both petrol and diesel crossed the Rs. 100 per litre mark like never before. LPG cylinder prices increased from Rs. 400 in 2014 to Rs. 1150 per cylinder in 2023. The huge increase in government taxes on petrol and diesel and reduction in subsidy on cooking gas led to a steep rise in prices. According to the information given by the Union Finance Minister in Parliament, in three years from 2018 to 2021, the Centre earned Rs. 8.02 trillion from this loot! This increase in the price of petroleum products increased transportation and other costs, leading to inflation. The prices of food, vegetables and other essential commodities have increased sharply and this is the highest increase in the last 12 years. Now, for the first time in 75 years of independence, GST has been imposed on food, due to which the survival of the poor is challenged.

The government had fixed the target of GST at one lakh ten thousand per month, whereas now one lakh 80 thousand crore rupees are being collected per month, so now the government should either free food items from GST or reduce the central tax on diesel and petrol, so that there is at least a relief of Rs. 30 per litre. This will give the centre only Rs. 20,000 crores less, but the deficit will be met by the increase in GST collection, which will have to be spent by the general public due to low inflation.

Only a handful of rich people enjoying all the perks!

On the other hand, there has been a very systematic transfer of income to a handful of people at the top of the economic hierarchy. According to London’s famous magazine ‘The Economist’, between 2016 and 2020, Mukesh Ambani’s net worth (total assets) increased by 350 percent to Rs. 7.18 lakh crores. In the same period, Gautam Adani’s net worth increased by 750 per cent to Rs. 5.06 lakh crores. When the Modi government came to power in 2014, the market capitalization of Adani Group was just $7 billion. In 2022, this has increased to about $ 200 billion. In international rankings, when Modi came to power in 2014, Adani was ranked 609th in the world. But a miracle happened - that in 2022, he reached number two in the world! In January 2023, the Hindenburg Report exposed them to a certain extent. Despite revelations of massive wrongdoings, the Modi regime continues to protect Adani by avoiding parliamentary scrutiny against the Adani Group. According to Oxfam India’s Inequality Report 2023, India’s richest 1 per cent hold 40 per cent of the country’s wealth. The top 5 per cent own 62 per cent of the country’s wealth; While the bottom 50 percent people i.e. 70 crore people have only 3 percent of the country’s wealth. From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to November 2022, the total number of billionaires in India increased from 102 to 166, while their wealth increased by 121 per cent or Rs. 2.5 crores every minute. The richest 21 billionaires have more wealth than 70 crore Indians. But the number of hungry Indians increased from 19 crore to 35 crore in the same period. Corporate loans worth Rs. 10.72 lakh crores were waived in the last eight years of the Modi government. Apart from this, corporates were also given tax exemption worth lakhs of rupees.

With a budget of Rs. 1,75,000 crores in 2021-22, some of the best-earning public sector companies and financial institutions (from disinvestment - privatisation) have been put up for sale to foreign corporates. Public sector banks and insurance companies will be privatised. Land and other public sector assets worth Rs. 6 lakh crores have been earmarked for sale to corporate lobbies through the National Monetization Pipeline (NMP). The entire country - Railways, Airports, Airlines, Ports, Steel, Coal, Oil, Telecom, Banks, Insurance, Health, Education and even Defence manufacturing is being sold to foreign corporates! Due to this, apart from a huge loss to the country, the laborers are also being hit by retrenchment on a large scale.

The Modi government has cracked down hard on workers, farmers and farm laborers through four labour codes, three farm laws and cuts to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Three agricultural laws were repealed due to one-year historic movement of Indian farmers under the leadership of SKM, but this farmer’s movement was badly crushed by the BJP government. As a result, 715 farmers became martyrs. The most reprehensible incident was when four farmers and a journalist were crushed to death by Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni’s car at Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh. Yet, Modi has shamelessly kept Teni in the same position. This never happens in a true democracy. Worth noting here is that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to resign first as Prime Minister and now as an MP after it was revealed that he had organized alcohol parties at the Prime Minister’s residence in the UK breaking Covid-era restrictions.

In short, if we look at all these things, then it is certain that the people of the country must unite to let the Modi government retire now!

(The author is the Editor of Marathi daily ‘Deshonnati’, Hindi daily ‘Rashtra Prakash’ and weekly ‘Krishakonnati’) The author can be contacted at 9822593921