“Every Government initiative results in subsidising the rich and taxing the poor, and the government at the centre is functioning like UPA III”, is how Saji Narayanan, a Sangh Parivar leader described Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in a recent article in Outlook India.
The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) president is the latest critic of the government and its policies after Yashwant Sinha.
Narayanan spoke about a recent 26 May event at the National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, where a Harvard professor highlighted how the government was not “engaging seriously in the social and economic progress” of India.
The present model of GDP growth is not inclusive, it benefits only a small creamy section of the society not the downtrodden and marginalised population of the country that lie in the social sector. Hence, BMS had to take a strong critical stand against the policy initiatives of the successive governments.Saji Narayanan
The BMS has engaged in shadow-boxing with the NITI Aayog, which replaced the Nehruvian Planning Commission in 2015, by delivering scathing attacks on its policy blunders.
The identification of issues, priorities, methodology adopted to analyse them and the remedies prescribed are highly defective and based on a failed western Capitalist model...In such a circumstance, corporates are the greatest beneficiaries with corporate advisors occupying important spaces in the government, especially in the policy-making mechanism.
Narayanan rebuked the foreign and NRI advisors chosen by the government who were the “people that paved the way for an easy exit for Manmohan Singh” but then “changed colours and began advising the present government”.
Things are moving badly, thanks to these advisors who look at the common man with contempt. Because of such people, the government is continuing the UPA policies with more vigour. Hence on the economic and labour front, it is nothing more than UPA III! Any additions are only cosmetic changes...The ghost of fallen UPA government is still haunting the corridors of the central government, hoping for a resurrection.
With job losses exceeding job creation, Narayanan said “the government forgets that important sectors which are labour intensive are in a collapsed state.”
Farmers are failing because of the exploitative agro marketing system at the mercy of middlemen.
He added that this failure has occurred due to lack of communication of the government with these sectors and that it will need “some sort of magic to claim job creation in these sectors”.
Many of the good intentions and efforts of Prime Minister are neutralised by lack of proper experts, dependence on faulty advisors and bureaucrats, misguided reforms, lack of communication and feedback from social sectors.
The BMS president termed GST and demonetisation as “historic and revolutionary steps which were badly implemented without considering ground-level practical realities.”
He said that labour was in a “tragic state” and those in the government were “trying to create a labour force devoid of human rights”.
The BMS will be holding a rally to the parliament on 17 November to raise sector-wise demands including “shifting to a people-centric economic reforms, implementation of minimum wages and social security to the last worker in the unorganised sector, implementation of equal pay for equal work for contract labour throughout the country, stopping of disinvestment and privatisation”.
(Breathe In, Breathe Out: Are you finding it tough to breathe polluted air? Join hands with FIT in partnership with #MyRightToBreathe to find a solution to pollution. Send in your suggestions to fit@thequint.com or WhatsApp @ +919999008335)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)