Modi has many ploys up his sleeves when it comes to propaganda. On one hand he is turning many a pronouncements of Congress in the communal direction, while on the other he is claiming that whatever has been achieved in the last 10 years of his rule is just a ‘trailer’ and bigger things are in the offing as he claims to be coming to power yet again in 2024. While his admirers are gaga about his ‘phenomenal’ achievements, the truth lies somewhere else.
His acolytes have been claiming his achievement in the form of providing increased use of internet, increase in air travel, 420 million more bank accounts, 110 million more gas connections, 220 million being covered by insurance, increased rate of building highways, more taxpayers and export of anti-Covid vaccine to so many countries leading to increase in India’s global prestige. And of course, provision of free rations to 800 million people.
These, in a way, are not true reflectors of the welfare of the people or the state of democracy and freedom in the country. Many major changes have taken place in the last decade which have undermined the welfare of the state and caused abolition of democratic freedoms in the country.
Since he came to power in 2014, the Cabinet system has been undermined to concentrated power in his hands. He is the decision maker in most of the cases. Demonetisation and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic are just two examples. Demonetisation was done solely by him on the claim that black money will be retrieved. While that did not happen, with 98% of the currency back in circulation, it caused severe hardships to the average citizen. Nearly 100 people died while queuing up in the banks for change of notes while others lost jobs or did not get paid for weeks due to the cash crunch.
The pandemic was another tragedy, compounded by his decision to impose a lockdown at a few hours’ notice. There are tragic tales related to the exodus of people from urban centres to their native places. The number of bodies floating in the Ganga and scattered on its banks tell the story of hardships suffered by the people.
At the administrative level, the constitutional bodies’ autonomy suffered a setback with most of them doing the bidding of the government, rather Modi himself. The impartiality of Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, IT and Election Commission has been compromised. Many judicial decisions also seem to be tilted in favour of the executive.
On the scale of democracy, as per the V Dem, the autonomous institute monitoring the index of democracy, India is ‘one of the worst autocratisers’. As per the report, there has been a downward slide on this front since 2018 when it was labeled as an ‘electoral autocracy’.
As far as press freedom is concerned, the average person can see the media being controlled by the corporate sector, close to the Modi regime. As per Reporters Without Borders, India has slipped down to 161 out of 180 countries studied in 2023. In 2022, it stood at 150. The freedom of expression and criticism of the government is labeled anti-national and many of our dedicated and committed human rights activists are jailed for years without, sometimes without even any charges.
“Throughout the year, the Indian government at the national, state, and local levels promoted and enforced religiously discriminatory policies, including laws targeting religious conversion, interfaith relationships, the wearing of hijabs, and cow slaughter, which negatively impact Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and Adivasis (indigenous peoples and scheduled tribes),” read the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)’s 2023 annual report.
Human rights watch summarises the condition of Muslim minorities in India as: “Authorities in India have adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against Muslims and stigmatize critics of the government. Prejudices embedded in the government of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have infiltrated independent institutions, such as the police and the courts, empowering (Hindu) nationalist groups to threaten, harass, and attack religious minorities with impunity.”
Economic conditions and employment situation is worsening by the day. Despite Modi’s promise of providing 20 million new jobs every year, unemployment rate in India increased to 8% in February 2024 from 6.8% in January 2024, according to CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey. This eased a bit in March 2014 but still remains the highest such rate in the last 40 years.
The hunger index is a good barometer for assessing the nutritional levels of society. India has fallen to 107 out of 121 countries assessed. This is worse than the prevailing situations in neighbouring countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka and BanglaDesh.
On the top of all this, the Oxfam India report (Survival of the Richest) tells us that “just 5% of Indians own more than 60% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 50% of the population possess only 3% of the wealth.”
The economic plight of Dalits has worsened during the last 10 years in particular. Sukhdeo Thorat, a prominent academic, states, “Dalits are employed in manual, unskilled labor jobs in urban areas. Given these facts, only 5% of the working Dalit population has actually benefited from the Indian reservation law… while GOI poverty alleviation programs help Dalits, the government does not strictly monitor them and many are never implemented”
Education and science research is being downgraded with the faith-based knowledge being given precedence over rational thinking. With the prime minister claiming that India had plastic surgeons in the past who could plant an elephant head on a human or that due to clouds our planes will not be detected by radars, what direction will science and education take in the country?
If the last 10 years were a trailer and Modi claims that he is coming back with an increased majority, India will have to face severe regression in the social, economic and political situation of the country.
Ram Puniyani is president of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.