The 20-lakh crore stim­u­lus pack­age of the In­dian gov­ern­ment has been a non-starter. In­dian in­dus­tri­al­ist Rahul Ba­jaj has called the stim­u­lus pack­age con­vo­luted -go­ing round and round with no be­gin­ning and no end.  The Com­mu­nist Party of In­dia calls it a hoax. Non-BJP party-led state gov­ern­ments are scream­ing for re­lief and sup­port.  In four days since the an­nounce­ment, the com­mit­ted BJP-aligned busi­ness­men and in­dus­tri­al­ists have felt a rude shock. This WSN ed­i­to­r­ial lays bare the empti­ness of the much-touted gi­ant stim­u­lus pack­age, which is noth­ing but a loan pack­age with the sugar coat­ing of self-re­liance. A bit­ter pill im­pos­si­ble to swal­low!

THE POOR­EST OF THE POOR -THE VOTE BANK OF MANY PAR­TIES -on the pe­riph­ery of towns and cities, labour in fac­to­ries and agri­cul­tural fields have been left to fend for it­self, with even the Supreme Court of In­dia un­will­ing to hear their plea, is walk­ing back home in the face of no suc­cour, no cash, no trans­port and no food.

Cor­rup­tion and ob­fus­ca­tion of data of food dis­tri­b­u­tion have been at an all-time high as it hap­pens in pan­demics and epi­demics. The best and worst of hu­mankind is com­ing to the fore. In­dia may have re­stricted the num­ber of those who have died of COVID-19, but the mis­ery of poverty is heart-rend­ing.

The dy­nam­ics of man­u­fac­tur­ing, trade and trans­port in­dus­try is chang­ing. Agri­cul­ture and the un­or­gan­ised sec­tor will never be the same for quite some time. The Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment is serv­ing plat­i­tudes, slo­gans of self-re­liance, of­fer­ing more loans and ab­solutely no tan­gi­ble re­lief, while the econ­omy and peo­ple are go­ing to the dogs,

This is what dis­as­ters are made up of. Is the Bharatiya Janata Party gov­ern­ment fool­ing the peo­ple of In­dia or has it run of ideas or both?

Fake news of so­cial me­dia is be­com­ing in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult to fathom and iden­tify. How does one con­test the ped­dling of lies, sub­terfuge and jug­glery of facts and fig­ures by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia?

The eco­nom­ics of re­mit­tance of hard-earned money, which has been the back­bone of the rural econ­omy in many parts of In­dia is to­tally shaken, re­mit­tance from over­seas to fam­i­lies like in Pun­jab has hit an all-time low, as the coun­tries face the on­slaught of the pan­demic.

Fake news of so­cial me­dia is be­com­ing in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult to fathom and iden­tify. How does one con­test the ped­dling of lies, sub­terfuge and jug­glery of facts and fig­ures by the gov­ern­ment of In­dia?

In clear com­plic­ity be­tween the state and the pow­er­ful lobby of in­dus­tri­al­ist, the labour laws of the coun­try have been thrown to the winds, leav­ing the labour class at the di­rect mercy of the fac­tory own­ers. No­body wants to spec­u­late the labour un­rest and may­hem that could re­sult in the com­ing times!

With the un­der­stand­able ever-in­creas­ing yearn­ing to be at home with fam­ily in a fa­mil­iar en­vi­ron­ment, thou­sands upon thou­sands are re­turn­ing home, to­tally obliv­i­ous to the fact as to how and what life has in store for them.

Op­er­at­ing ATMs or pay­ing through cash­less meth­ods in­stead of grow­ing shows signs of de­crease as cash-strapped pop­u­la­tions are dy­ing to hold cash re­serves, how­so­ever small they are.  From the small­est street ven­dor to the shops, it re­quires a lot of con­vinc­ing to per­suade to use cash­less meth­ods to buy es­sen­tial com­modi­ties. All processes, in the wake of a fi­nan­cial crunch, seem to be crash­ing.

In the trans­port sec­tor -the High­way war­riors -the dri­vers and their as­sis­tants are be­ing beaten and ha­rassed at in­ter­state check­points and toll bar­ri­ers. More than 90 per cent have re­turned home. In­stead of a re­lief pack­age, the gov­ern­ment is telling truck­ers to take more loans. Even com­mon sense would show that this will lead to a debt-trap and the con­se­quences would be dis­as­trous.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pan­demic, a court in Italy ruled that steal­ing bread to sat­isfy hunger is not a crime. The num­ber of in­ci­dents of po­lice per­son­nel, pri­vate small busi­ness­men and or­di­nary peo­ple com­mit­ting sui­cides un­able to bear the turn of events is in­creas­ing by the day. The door­bells of so­cial tur­moil and in­di­vid­ual men­tal health strain are ring­ing if you lend an ear. 

In the last four days, there has been no men­tion of the trans­port sec­tor, at all.  The trans­port in­dus­try is star­ing at a crash­ing halt af­ter re­ceiv­ing a step-moth­erly treat­ment from the In­dian gov­ern­ment know­ing fully well that the wheels of the econ­omy run on the wheels of road trans­port.

Re­cently, in the midst of the COVID-19 pan­demic, a court in Italy ruled that steal­ing bread to sat­isfy hunger is not a crime. The num­ber of in­ci­dents of po­lice per­son­nel, pri­vate small busi­ness­men and or­di­nary peo­ple com­mit­ting sui­cides un­able to bear the turn of events is in­creas­ing by the day. The door­bells of so­cial tur­moil and in­di­vid­ual men­tal health strain are ring­ing if you lend an ear.

No­ble-prize win­ning econ­o­mist Ab­hi­jit Baner­jee has said that in or­der to in­crease pur­chas­ing power, the gov­ern­ment must make di­rect de­posits to the poor and the lower mid­dle class. The same has been em­pha­sized by lead­ing in­dus­tri­al­ist and phil­an­thropist Wipro’s Aziz Pre­mji.

Is any­one lis­ten­ing?

Ti­tle Im­age Cour­tesy: 9gag.com