More on Budget

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 Sithara-man'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 2021-22. 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.

Nirmala Sitaraman's third Budget 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 Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (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.

For one thing 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 Sitaraman's exercise. It truly upholds Mr Narendra Modi's idea of minimum government for people and maximum support for his corporate friends. He returns the favour to big business houses that support him with election expenses through electoral bonds. It is a corporate budget devoid of democratic accountability to the electorates.

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 saffron politics.

[Contributed]

Frontier
Vol. 53, No. 33, Feb 14 - 20, 2021