3 February 2020
The Budget was changed by Mr Jaitley, when he changed the date, when the Railway Budget was subsumed into the National Budget.The major changes were not these, the major changes were how normal bills got converted into money bills, like the one that brought in Electoral Bonds for Political party financing, or the placement of the core of the budget as Annexure to it, simply tabling it in the House and not making it the substance of the budget speech itself. So it is like an Auditor’s speech now, where the auditor does not talk of the figures in the books, but talks of vision and purpose!
We need to accept that though Mr Jaitley is removed from the scene by his mortality, that it would be rather unkind to place his contextual contribution to where India is today, as an analyst, one would be remiss, if one did not lay the burden of cause and the effects of Modi 1.0 at the right door of late Mr Jaitley. He got away with his spin, his ‘blogging’ when he became too unwell to proffer media bytes. He also got away, because the global phenomenon of ‘Post Truth’ meant a phenomenon where ‘Democrats in USA, Labour in UK and INC in India’ were held to account for their actions of failing to stop or moderate the actions of Trump, Brexiters and the NDA government in the last four to five years respectively. For USA and UK the recent Impeachment of Trump and the Brexit that was triggered formally on 01 February now close the doors on much of that avenue of criticism that came the way of those political formations, but in India’s case, the tunnel to redemption seems to have no end in sight!
So when the new Economic Advisor says that India’s slow down is part of a global phenomenon, we know how this spin will continue, and unlike those who want to corner the government to expatiate it for its sins of an incomprehensible twin blows to a smoothly riding Indian economy of Demonetisation and GST, I feel that we need to get past those because, firstly that is history- an area where the RSS is very strong in making selective appropriations and negations so unless you want to wrestle in the muck, don’t go there; secondly because now we are three years past those blows and our economy always being resilient will now deliver green shoots bypassing or catering to those crippling blows. So when the CEA now says that the economy is on a rebound, let us take his word for it, for from an estimated 5.6 % if the rate upends at 6% it is a sign of rebound.
If you saw the Market reaction to Ms Sitaraman’s longest ever budget speech at nearly 3 hours, where she repeated herself often for emphasis, where she gave herself away that Mr Modi is the true visionary of this economic reality of India, and where many economic analysts and opinion makers felt that she was simply handed over a script, it was a big ‘entire fist down’ not a mere ‘thumbs down’. A drop of 1000 points on Sensex is a first of a kind compliment that the Markets offered to their FM on the very day of her Budget speech! Of course, it is not as if the bourses were on some bull run prior to this, there was more of a slide than recovery session after session for better part of Modi 2.0, which began with the very day the Government stopped contesting the bad news on the economic front, news which in my opinion would have delivered a much different Lok Sabha tally to BJP had India’s governance system and her fourth estate not suffer from absolute spinelessness and resolute servitude to the ruling party! Again, if you thought that Mr Modi alone was enjoying the buoyancy of pro incumbency that Post Truth offered to her faithful, think again, for Mr Trump and Mr Boris ( we could aid Bolsonaro, Netanyahu too to this list) are equal beneficiaries of it. Ezra Eklein has authored his new book titled ‘Why we are polarized’ to catch this current and benefit from it, for none of his reasoning is really a fresh insight. Why we are polarised is because we have allowed our prejudices to get the better of our education, of our science, our common sense, and most importantly are prejudices are driving our agenda! Where Truth has been sacrificed at the alter of Belief, that is Post Truth Era, and naturally the closest comparison to what would eventually happen to human society collectively is a comparison to medieval Dark Ages that visited Europe in the immediate aftermath of birth of formal Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church. I feel that while comparison to Hitler’s Third Reich or Mussolini’s Fascism appears more potent, unless commentators draw on the damage to society that happened when Europe converted into one Christendom which was subsequently shocked out of its choke hold by Islam and the Renaissance caused due to Persian and Arabic knowledge that reached her shores ( part due to exodus from Middle Eastern region due to rise of Islam and part due to Islamic spread itself), human society may struggle to find answers. It is tantalising for yours truly to wager here, that the new Dark Ages that have descended on our world will find answers when ‘Dharma’ is exorcised from the throes of dogma that had besieged it for a millennia and more, ( I call this the Age of Sutras and Smritis) and throws off its orthodoxy and conservatism that has made it a breeding ground for Hindutva. It is India that will find her feet, rediscover her kindred spirit of enquiry and soul search, which made even her first Muslim rulers uneasy with their own certitude, which overwhelmed them in parts and which led to the world’s only White Colonial regime that did not lead to a Christian Nation or adoption wholesale 19th & 20th Century Western mores.
Ms Sitaraman has continued on her part, like a true soldier on the vision laid down by Mr Jaitley. That vision is deeply suspicious of wealth generation, of private wealth distribution, and envisions a state which will overwhelm her citizenry by its hold over their material lives. I see some commentators feel that the bureaucrats have spooked Mr Modi’s vision of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. They could not be more wrong.
The theocratic state envisioned by the RSS champions Hindutva. The short answer for it is not the political noise of othering of non Hindus in India which the media and the chatterati are so bothered and bogged down with. It is the silent take over of the apparatchiks of the State through indoctrination which has led today to the obvious partisan conduct of the Delhi Police in the two instances of shooting at Jamia and Shaheen Bagh which has the attention of the media. There is a larger effect of this ‘committed bureaucracy’ which is not going to toe the line of Mr Modi’s pious statements of intent that is largely for elites and international media consumption. This steel framework has reconfigured itself over the last several decades, reaching now those levers from where from incremental postural changes have now given way to broad structural changes. This committed force is very sure of the ideological outlines and the charter pertaining to individual duty. The vision of economics is not Arthashastra. It is Manu Smriti. Like how the Vedas and all things Sanskrit were controlled by creating filters of qualifiers to gain access, now wealth itself will face similar sequestering, as if Lakshmi were a desolate lady like Sita in Asoka Vana, needing a Hanuman devoted to Rama who would fly across seas and be super human enough to meet with her and beget her blessings.
If you as a tax payer, as a Chartered Accountant, as a Economic Policy wonk, as a citizen well versed in governance, have not picked up this narrative, do not be harsh on your self. Just blame ‘Pakistan’, because for once this is absolutely bang on. Our neighbour is being touted in such overwhelming fashion that its distractive presence is difficult to debug!
So once we get a broad sense of what we have been prescribed, we can now patiently look at what has been crafted and presented to Parliament on 1 February 2020.
( to be concluded)
indiarubberman.com 