Why is India failing ?

 Indian government's bad performance is attributed to many things. Fundamentalism, the ruling BJP's overwhelming majority in Parliament and therefore no effective opposition, toppling elected state governments, inability to show compassion to the poor, especially during the migrant labour crisis, inability to show leadership when China attacked India and killed Indian soldiers or when neighbouring Nepal redrew the map and finally rounding up the year with unprecedented farmer protests when the Indian parliament quietly passed farm laws that affects farmers without consultation, debate or discussion.

People have been distracted with Covid-19 for most of the year. It doesn't take much to see that federalism has been dying a slow death since BJP took over. But can that explain a failing economy and large scale unemployment, unseen in the last 45 years? Why are many industrialists either fleeing India or disappearing or committing suicide? All previous governments be it the Indian National Congress, the United Front or even the previous BJP government did one thing the current government is failing to do. While crony capitalists did exist then, the Indian government never did one thing - tell the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) what to do. Politicians suggested economic measures but never dictated economic policy. Even if they tried, the RBI could not lend them money. So despite rampant corruption, political cronies never had the kind of power they have now.

This has lead to demonetization, GST and budgets with no figures all in the name of removing corruption!. Meanwhile,Indian banks are forced to lend without collateral, have been made to do so. Getting loans nowadays has never been as easy without collateral as RBI is now under government control. So, is it any surprise that large corporations headed by crony industrialists of the government are trying to buy up India in bits and pieces.

The farmers have a slogan - No farmers, no food. This is true as the GOI hastily tried to pass farm bills in an attempt to corporatise agriculture forcing farmers to sell it to two of their political cronies. Anyone who has been watching the destruction of the farmers for the past three years would have noticed that right from demonetization in 2017, the Indian farmers have been protesting silently by either crushing their own produce or publicly protesting on a massive scale but to no avail. Neither the prime minister nor anyone from the cabinet of ministers have bothered to talk to them. The farmer suicides have only been increasing since 2017. The signs are all there. First it was privatization of water, then vegetables and fruits and now food grains. The farmers are now on the streets. No government should have this kind of power over land, food and water. If i t does after it has swallowed up state power, then we are only heading for a system where government tells us what to eat and how much to eat. Reminds me of Soviet Union where bread and black coffee was free but everything else cost money, even butter and sugar.

If the current Indian government thinks it can have a functioning Stalinist Russia in India with an undeclared emergency, all I can recall is the words of one freedom fighter who I had interviewed, "Your generation will have to fight a second freedom struggle if you want your rights."