Whose dream is PM Modi chasing?

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Whose dream is PM Modi chasing?

After BJP’s huge failure in GST or demonetization, how can people take risk of their nationality or their origin?

Wednesday January 1, 2020 10:46 AM, Pradip Bhattacharya, ummid.com

Modi Government

When NDA-government led by Narendra Modi swept the polls in 2014, it seemed that he has vowed to vault India into an era of prosperity. But alas, such a thing did not happen and remained a day-dream for voters. There has been the expectation of voters that the Modi government would not suppress or oppress any Indian voice. But it did not happen either. Indeed, Modi’s popularity has always rested on his Hindu nationalism who also promised to make India an economic powerhouse replacing even China. Since 2014, people had seen Bharatiya Janata Party’s politics is influencing the way the government is choosing to reveal its government data or policies.

Modi’s Failures

People saw Modi’s first abrupt decision in November 2016 when he tried to eliminate most of the country’s cash currency in circulation. Known as demonetization, it wanted to crack down illegal trash transactions, but the change was so hasty and hectic that it damaged India’s economy.

After demonetization, Modi implemented a new single tax code, the Goods and Services Tax, known as the G.S.T., but enforcement of the change was so disorganized that it crippled medium and small scale businesses.

Soon after GST, rose the unemployment problem. Modi came on the promise of providing jobs, but the situation became worse in his period. Modi-led NDA government was responsible for the worst unemployment rate since 1972-73 when the country was engulfed in war with Pakistan.

Besides, Modi failed to tackle various economic, political and social issues - such as natural disasters like droughts or floods, prioritized low investment in the rural economy, farmers' suicide, and his cabinet did even struggle to raise the standard in the Indian manufacturing sector.

Why Modi failed, it was never discussed in his cabinet meeting at all. This is very sad. After Modi came to power, mob lynchings and another kind of hate crimes are on the rise in India. Mob violence in India has been sparked off by communal hate – especially cow protection.

Prime Minister Modi talks very high about his Mann ki baat, excluding all his above deficiencies. If Modi could highlight his administration's faults in his Mann kit baat topics, the economy of India could have been in better shape.

BJP hides its data

It is umpteenth time that the Modi government has played around with revealing official data to meet the BJP’s political goals. For the past few years, the ruling party had hidden key statistics or even released data after a prolonged delay. BJP has very tactfully rejected or suppressed the government data from the public domain.

It has scrapped data collection on employment and the ruling BJP party has been accused of even suppressing the results of the 2011 caste census.

For instance, this was the first time in independent India that the government rejected a survey done by the National Statistical Office.

Narendra Modi-led NDA government has turned a blind eye to the National Statistical office’s (NSO) 2017-2018 consumer expenditure data. The data revealed that consumer spending was down for the first time in 40 years. The government rejected the leaked data in the section of media and said that it will not be releasing the data at all. It may be noted that under the leaked NSO survey, it showed that the average amount of money spent by Indians in a month fell by 3.7% to Rs 1,446 in 2017-18 from Rs 1,501 in 2011-12.

Why do people fear NPR, NRC or CAA?

The government’s decision to politicize data collection is not new, which results in some numbers being hidden away or some being sliced and diced for political gain, which will harm India’s economic development as well as its democracy.

What is real danger with BJP and its idea on National Population Registrar( NPR) and National Register of Citizens (NRC) - that the Narendra Modi government wants to know all about its citizens – where he or she and their parents were born, details of the family members, mobile numbers, what the older generations occupation and so on. Modi government has announced that NPR must be regulated by next year.

The lack of reliable data from the Centre could provide nightmare for policymakers as well as every Indian state. This is one reason why many Indian states want to block NPR, NCR or CAA, but BJP does not understand this basic.

People have not forgotten the nightmare they had to face on the imposition of GST, demonetization, or Article 370, etc. In case of NRC or NPR now, people have understood the tactics of the Centre very well. The government’s decision is here to politicize data collection, which might result in some numbers being hidden away or some being sliced and diced for political gain.

People across India fear that if the NPR and the planned NRC is linked, it would enable the government to access personal information about people living in the country. This kind of enormous data-gathering exercise could even enable the ruling party and the RSS to deny people citizenship.

After BJP’s huge failure in GST or demonetization, how can people take risk of their nationality or their origin?

Moreover, in a democracy, the citizens have a right to be well informed about citizenship, and this government cannot place any reliable data but tamper the original national population census register itself. While placing any government data, the government even simply might pretend that those numbers don’t exist. Here is the real fear of our citizen - NPR can be used for danger or majoritarian purposes

BJP cites Nehru, Gandhi's to back CAA

Sadly, it is clear that the BJP has proven itself to be far removed from that legacy of Gandhi or Nehru, whether BJP makes it clear that CAA, CAB, NRC, and NPR were even in the records of Parliament even in Nehru’s time, Indira Gandhi’s time, Rajiv Gandhi’s time, Manmohan Singh’s time. And why it should not be, can BJP make it clear to us? Be it Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, or Indira Gandhi would not have ever created a nightmare in public mind which Modi succeeded.

The Centre is suppressing all crucial data of its government because it does not like to place its data before 133 crore people. To back nation support, BJP is using its old formula citing Manmohan Singh’s speech and other relative information like CAA was amended as many as six times starting from the days of Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi can never win people’s faith anymore. Let us all wish that New Year only usher positive things for us and we succeed in blocking NPR-NRC-CAA.

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