The government is clear in its messaging – be ready to be a good slave of the new century.
Illustration: The Wire, with Canva.
Leaving people in the lurch is not a new thing for the Modi government. If people have not understood this, it is clearly their fault, they had 10 years to do so.
You can share your frustration in memes, they are thankfully tax-free. This budget is an affirmation of denial. Forget about raising the issues of the public, even the issues that made a dent in the latest Lok Sabha elections were not even acknowledged.
The Economic Survey that comes a day before the budget, and is called its guiding document, has fantasy chapter titles such as these:
STATE OF THE ECONOMY: STEADY AS SHE GOES
EMPLOYMENT AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS QUALITY
PRICES AND INFLATION: UNDER CONTROL
Are they really talking about our country? There is more headline management in the budget than what you see in the Economic Survey. ‘Garib’ ‘Mahilayen’ ‘Yuva’ and ‘Annadata’ are words with which the finance minister begins her speech, utterly forgetting them in actuality. If it were possible she could have even hailed Ambani, Adani, and other champions of the Indian economy.
Let’s look at the most burning issue, the issue of unemployment. The finance minister proposed three things under this. First is the internship idea, where 1 crore youth will be given an opportunity to intern with top 500 companies with a stipend of Rs 5,000 per month.
Imagine your rich friends reportedly spending Rs 5000 crore on a wedding and you are planning to give a measly Rs 5,000 to the youth. One can’t even afford accommodations in any of the metro cities at this sum. And what will happen after one year? What is the government’s long term plan? Nothing.
The second idea is that if you get a job, you will get a maximum subsidy of Rs 15,000 from the government. The catch is ‘if you get a job.’ The questions are how and where? If private jobs were so easy to come by, half of the youth would have been employed by now. But that is not the finance minister’s worry. There are over 9.64 lakh vacancies in central government jobs. At least the government could have pledged to fill these up? But no, the government seems to be saying, you are responsible for your employment, just as you are responsible for your luggage lost by the railways.
The third idea is for the government to give incentive to employers by depositing Rs 3,000 per new hire in their EPFO accounts, for two years. That is Rs 72,000 per employee. It is the legal responsibility of any employer to deposit money in your provident fund account. Now the government is freeing the owners from their legal responsibilities and is giving an additional gift of Rs 72000 per employee.
Even if the employer gets incentives to increase employment, how will the government monitor these schemes? Has it made strict penalty rules? No. Instead, just a few days ago the government reduced the penalty on companies for defaulting on EPFO.
You see, this government has no idea as to how to increase real jobs. In the name of Employment Linked Incentive Scheme, more money is being pushed towards corporates while the youth are given a new toy to play with.
Another aspect of employment is its conditions. Today the biggest assault is on the labour force of the country. They are the ones pressured for productivity, forced to work 12 to 14 hours on contract basis and in the gig economy, where neither compensation nor working hours are fixed. The government is not in a position to see and understand their problems. These are the same people who earn less than Rs 10,000 per month, but they also pay everything from GST to toll tax.
Tax tax tax!
You must have seen many tax memes trending on social media by now and it is apparent that people are resorting to sharing their sorrows through memes. By now we know it is the poor and the middle class who are running this country by paying more than 60% taxes. While the rich are living on a different stratosphere. We don’t need tax havens like Bermuda, Panama or Bahamas, when the country itself is going out of its way to provide for the super-rich.
This budget, which remains silent in the name of employment generation, is finding new ways to fill the coffers of the rich.
Who should pay more tax – a salaried person or a company earning profits worth lakhs and crores? For the first time in history corporate tax is around 27.2% while personal income tax is 29.2% of GDP. On top of that, the tax on foreign corporates has been reduced from 40% to 35%! What could we say but, wah Modi ji, Wah!
That’s not all, there is a lot more. If you default on loans then don’t worry, we will take care of you with the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code. Going to jail for financial frauds is such a passé, staying jail-free and tax-free is Modi ki guarantee.
Now, if you do not pay TDS and other taxes on time, it does not matter, you will get more concessions. For start-ups, we have a 30% angel tax waiver! Enjoy.
Social security
Oh yes, the poor. There is a lot for the poor of the country. Let’s have a look. MGNREGS budget is the same as the Revised Estimate of last year, so that you don’t have to toil in this rainy season. Food subsidy is cut by 3.33% so that you can eat free food at the Ambani mansion at the rest of the wedding functions that may follow. LPG subsidy is reduced now that the elections are over. Rs. 1200 crore is reduced in the labour welfare fund, and Rs. 3000 crore decreased in the labour budget, because the government does not want to pamper you, the country needs hard work now, more than ever. Rural development subsidy is cut by 20%, while there is a reduction in National Urban Livelihood Mission by 43%. Look, the government is trying to bridge the rural-urban divide.
Is anything increasing at all? Oh yes, there is a 2.5% increase in the Women & Child Development fund, but if adjusted for inflation, it makes no difference. Thank you for voting for Modi ji, sisters, this is how you get repaid. We’ll come back with some subsidy for you before the next elections. Until then, stay safe, cause you know, we can’t guarantee that.
In short, all the welfare measures are treated like a pinch of masala in the curry, without which the curry would be tasteless. Leg pieces are reserved for the rich, of course. When the government itself calls the basic needs provided to the poor as ‘revdi’ then what more can we expect?
We must not forget that these are the same important welfare schemes which provide human dignity to the poor and the downtrodden and support their livelihood. When you snatch away even this basic support, you can’t be called the government of a democratic country. In fact you look like a landlord of a princely state who enjoys crushing his subjects.
The public know by now that budgeting is a gimmick and have no expectationswhatsoever from this government.
Yet one big expectation was that this budget should have taken concrete steps towards legalising Minimum Support Price, but it went far away from it to agribusiness.
Now private players can be part of research at government agriculture institutions, creating a way for them to direct the course of agriculture research in the coming future.
Another idea is that of the creation of a Digital Public Infrastructure which will record farmers’ land and their crop progress digitally.
Did any farmer movement make any such demand? Who needs the digital data of farmers? It is obvious that all the corporations are directing the government to pursue their own end-goals. In fact, the government did not even consult anyreal farmers’ unions before the budget.
The budget is silent on the real demands of farmers, like implementation of MSP, crop insurance, low interest loans, electricity and water facilities, reducing cost of production, and making fertilizers available.
The government’s message to the farmers is to give up their stubbornness and their land and get ready to become slaves of the corporate.
So who is the budget for?
It seems like it is payback time for the government – to corporate bosses and coalition bosses. If any generosity has been shown anywhere then it is for Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
Yet an allocation of Rs 10-15 thousand crores to Bihar and Andhra Pradesh seems like a pittance; and the interesting thing is the government itself will not give this money, but will arrange it from other multilateral development agencies like the World Bank.
But the real issue is fiscal federalism – how can a government give preferential treatment to two states and treat the rest like stepchildren?
Through this budget, the government has clearly stated that it does not care about the 90% of the country, it only wants to take along the top 1%.
For the rest of the people, there is a message in the Economic Survey: You must work harder, put in more hours and forget about overtime. To put it plainly – be ready to be a good slave of the new century.
This article was originally published in The Wire and can be read here.
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