Eight years of NDA Union Government’s misgovernance

:: M.Y.Siddiqui ::

Eight years of NDA Union Government’s misgovernance since 2014 has plunged the nation into the vortex of communalism, hatred, religious polarization, divisive/majoritarian politics, ever-rising unemployment, growing inflation, farmer crisis and economic downturn as never before, making India a dystopia, a society characterized by human misery, squalor, oppression and disease. Besides, the Prime Minister made India communal and authoritarian. Minorities' bashings/targeted violence against minorities have been institutionalized by ruling RSS Pariwar as state cruelty and nationalism are used to divide society for political gains. Resonance of Nazi Germany can be seen in politics today. The poor have been marginalized. Damage to Indian democracy under the PM is lasting. India has transformed into an illiberal, majoritarian and intolerant country. Far from ground reality, Government has been surviving on headline management, propaganda and fake news.

A new Hinduism known as Hindutwa has emerged that accepts widely vile prejudice, alignment of state with majoritarianism, contempt for rights and glorification of violence. Almost all the preconditions for widespread pogrom-type violence are now in place. We almost dread the thought that India has reached a point where the question is not the “if” but “when”. What else would one call the widespread acceptance of vile prejudice, the dismantling of any semblance of conscience, the alignment of the state with majoritarian power, the complete effacement of individuals by imposed communal identification, the self justification of the majority that has cloaked itself as the victim, the total contempt for the rights, search for the slightest pretext for revenge and the radical othering of minorities.

India has been paying unfathomable human and economic price for the PM’s decisions since 2014. On several metrics of performance indices like the UN Development Programme Human Index, Lowy Institute Asia Power Index, Brand Finance Global Soft Power Index, Freedom Houses Freedom in the World, Reporters Without Borders, World Press Freedom Index and others, PM in full is revealed. So is his effect on the nation. Government’s handlings of criticism were undemocratic and reprehensible. During 2020 alone, government made 2772 legal demands to censor contents and accounts on Twitter. Raids by government agencies on news sites, News Click, News laundry, Dainik Bhaskar and arrests of activists and journalists were continued. Demonetizations of 2016 destroyed cash centric economy. National economy was rendered cashless. Later the government claimed before the Supreme Court of India that no deaths was caused due to lack of oxygen in the pandemic during the lockdown, 

After the Make In India was launched, the share of manufacturing in the country’s GDP shrank from 16 per cent to 13 per cent, employment in manufacturing sector reduced to half after 2016 from 5.1 crore to 2.7 crore. According to Arvind Panagarya, former and first Deputy Chairman of NITI Ayog, “Atma Nirbhar Bharat is muddled”. According to economists of repute, the biggest achievement of the NDA Union Government is being more expensive goods for Indian consumers and protection from external competition for industrialists. In labour force participation, government data reveals that labour participation in the USA is 60 per cent, in China 70 percent and in India 40 percent, lower than even Pakistan, for the first time lowest in South Asia. Added to this, India lost a fifth of its workforce to the staggering incompetence of the NDA Union Government, indicating the PM’s popularity does not come from his performance.

The current union government primarily on its economy and society that India is no longer progressing to become a developed nation or have the same development potential as produced by China will impact India negatively. It looks under the PM, the economic trajectory will lead to the continuation of mass poverty. Mass unemployment will become the norm. Majority of national resources, wealth will be controlled by a few, the way it has been happening in the past eight years along with the Indian society remaining  divided with the minorities forced to ghettoize. Indians will be focused on religion (the ultimate opium) and religious differences. Violence will be accepted  when it comes to the use of force, it has devolved from the state with encouragement by RSS Pariwar and that the mob rule by Hindutwa will continue in the foreseeable future.

In international policies, there has been deterioration in India’s relations with its neighbours, China and Pakistan and India’s handling of the dispute about Kashmir. More than 8.5 lakh Indians renounced their citizenship from 2014 to September 30, 2021 as per the data available with the Ministry of Home Affairs. A total of 8, 81254 Indian nationals migrated abroad to greener pastures. They are rich and business people, so much for peace, harmony and ease of doing business in the country. 

Some other important things that have happened under the current central regime include public outcry for the Chief Justice of India, Justice M.V.Ramana for finishing what he has begun, Muslims seeing sharpest drop in fertility rate, Hindutwa propaganda that Muslims will subsume Hindus falling flat, according to the latest National Family Welfare Survey, time to break collective silence and speak out against hate, hate in India and make in India can’t coexist, India again country of particular concern, worsening religious freedom in India, bulldozer enabled demolitions a complete breakdown of law and order, police becoming out and out  communal and partisan as never before, India’s curb on free speech and civil society, a common concern among the people.

India today stands at a dangerous place, with the founding values of our secular, democratic and republican Constitution coming under flagrant assault from prejudiced ideas, acts of prejudice, discrimination, and violent incidents, all planned and orchestrated as part of an anti-Constitutional political project!

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