By Sushil Kutty
Nothing seems to move the Buddha born in Vadnagar at Gujarat’s Mehsana district. Neither the contraction of India’s territorial integrity at the LAC nor the contraction of India’s GDP by a massive 23.9 per cent in the last quarter. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is beyond all these events when he is engaged in feeding the peacock who has access to his residence and who cannot be a Covid-19 threat to the lone inhabitant.
Does Modi think of India’s economy or does he leave it to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to keep a lookout on the economy. There’s no doubt that Sitharaman follows in the footsteps of Narendra Modi. Notice how she followed up Modi’s mega $266 billion economic stimulus package announcement on May 12 with five tranches, one after the other, of what all was in store.
Now we hear from no less a person that the Chief Economic Advisor K Subramanian that the 23.9 per cent GDP contraction was no great shakes as the country was anyway under lockdown in the April-June quarter. So, relax! Is that so? The fact remains that this was contraction after 24 years. The last time GDP contracted was in 1979-80, by 5.2 per cent.
So, while ‘relax’ is good health-advisory during any pandemic, to be told this devastating contraction news on Onam day couldn’t have gone down well with anybody least of all King Mahabali – on whose legend Onam is celebrated in what is referred to as ‘God’s Own Country, especially when the putrid smell of the Covid-19 dead had made it amply clear that something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark – India!
That apart, the state of the ‘Onamsadhya’ – reduced to a quarter on the plantain leaf – and King Mahabali’s hunger must not have lost its keen edge. The question arises: Was King Mahabali an economist? The story goes that Mahabali’s people never went hungry, and that Kerala was a land of plenty then, flowing with coconut milk and honey – a pure vegetarian repast laid out in every household throughout the year and more so on Onam Day. So much so, even to this day, Keralians or Malayalis pine for the Mahabali days!
The reality is that monarchies are old hat (crown!) and that what we have today in ‘Bharata’ is a democratic republic with an elected government. Of course, no communist party ruled the forbidden kingdom during Mahabali’s reign. And he didn’t have to contend with a coronavirus pandemic or a Xi Jinping out to paint the green planet Maoist red! The point is Covid-19 and the coronavirus can be contained, if not beaten, if India sadly didn’t lack a leader who knew his economics as well as he knew his politics!
Meaning what? Meaning, it will take a change of leadership to bring in a change in fortunes for the country. Right, okay, but that’s what the whole gobbledygook is all about! There cannot be a change of leadership unless there’s also something like a sudden-death app. Like in a soccer match: A goal at any minute of the extra-time, by anyone of either teams, and the victor gets to hoist the cup! Gotcha?
Well, the answer to that is, not all country heads are like Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The likes of Britain’s Boris Johnson and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro have stuck it through coronavirus infection and quarantine, and didn’t resign. But Covid-19 afflicted Shinzo Abe has announced that he’ll no longer remain Japan’s Prime Minister.
Can we expect a similar deal from Prime Minister Narendra Modi? Will Modi do a Shinzo Abe? The first retort from his supporters would be ‘Are you crazy?’ The second would be “No, never. It’s not in Modi’s nature to call it quits. He’s a fighter, has been a fighter all his life.” Modi will, without an iota of doubt, choose to quarantine himself with a peacock and ride time till a vaccine arrives.
The question is, did not the mega $266 billion economic stimulus package work its magic? The economic stimulus had also come when the lockdown was in place and should have offset the ill-effects of the lockdown. But, apparently, and now, certainly, the economic stimulus did not stop the GDP from contracting. Instead, a ‘mood of the nation’ survey placed Narendra Modi on ‘Cloud 9’ even as India was in Covid-19! (IPA Service)