Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday announced that India was well on the way to becoming the world’s third largest economy over the next five years or as he referred to it suggesting that the upcoming Lok Sabha election is a mere formality.
His comments come even as a group of six youths affiliated with the Bhagat Singh Fan Club took the unprecedented step of protesting within Parliament to highlight the high rates of unemployment facing a large section of India’s youth for whom the benefits of India’s growing economy have clearly failed to reach.
While India’s rise up the world economy ladder was inevitable thanks to market forces no sooner the country decided to open up its economy in 1991 and India’s growing population is among the largest consumer market in the world, what is increasingly clear, especially over the last few years that the benefits of this growth have been cornered by a few.
It was not too long ago -- in early November -- that the Union government decided to extend its free ration scheme for the poor by another five years. The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Generation Scheme continues to be the backbone for the unemployed in rural India. Welfare, cash disbursal and benefit transfer schemes continue to be the most popular, despite the ruling BJP mocking them as ‘freebies’ and the party itself has been forced to change track and adopt such freebie announcements in a bid to keep the opposition out of power.
Ever since the Covid pandemic, economists have warned about K-shaped growth, one in which the richer segment of society got even richer but the lower strata of the economy have struggled to even make ends meet as witnessed in falling demand for two-wheelers and fast-moving consumer goods.
Celebrating headline events like a booming stock market, which is currently at an all-time high, or the size of the overall economy makes little sense when the average citizen is still struggling to pay his bills.
In per capita terms India stands 142nd among 197 countries which is much closer to the bottom than it is to the top. Such disparity within society can lead to feelings of disenfranchisement which in turn leads to increased crime, violence which in turn only further alienates the poor from participating in society.
If the government is serious about the economy beyond creating a positive feel and headlines, it should focus its efforts on real welfare measures to help take the burden off the common man. Initiatives like cheap and reliable public transport, food guarantee schemes and minimum income guarantee schemes go a long way in taking the burden off those who depend on them. It is no wonder that the free bus transport scheme introduced by the Congress governments in Karnataka and Telangana and the AAP government in Delhi has been hugely popular.
Hubris can be fatal as the NDA government led by Vajpayee learnt the hard way in the 2004 Lok Sabha election. There is nothing to indicate that the current government will be as careless as that, but ignoring the needs of the majority while celebrating the achievements of the rich will only serve to alienate a majority and render them voiceless.
