While extending lockdown, he had said that he was planning to turn India into “Atmanirbhar Bharat”. He once again reiterated his promise at the 95th annual plenary session of the Indian Chamber of Commerce in Calcutta through a video conference on June 11. But there is no denying that he lacked sincerity. While slapping lockdown for the first time he had boasted that Mahabharat was finished in18 days and the corona will be finished in 21 days. But even after three months corona continues to ravage. There is no let up.

Keeping his rhythm of making loud and bold statements which are basically utopian in character, Modi emphasised; "India's goal of self-reliance has been paramount in the policy and practice of the country. The Covid-19 crisis gave us lessons on how to speed up efforts in that direction". But as usual he could not provide an insight in what manner his approach is different from the past model of India as a self-reliant country?

It is absolutely clear that he has been making this statement only to keep his new found vote bank, urban middle class, happy and also to ensure that they do not switch their loyalty and dump him. Though the elections to the Lok Sabha are still four year away, he cannot prefer to be complacent.

An insight into his modus operandi would make it clear that he has built his base among middle class by feeding negative ideas. He never apprised them with true and positive info about his idea of the bright and new India. He has resorted to this strategy only to keep them away from the Congress and strengthen their belief that the Congress was responsible for all the malaise that India faces today. His decree that an Atmanirbhar Bharat ought to be created is based on the preface that the earlier narrative of self-reliant India has been a flawed idea.

His insistence that the Covid-19 crisis should be turned into an opportunity to create an 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' and steps have to be taken to ensure that products imported from abroad are manufactured in the country, is the part of this design. Addressing businessmen Modi said that the government’s highest priority is to strengthen the economy against the impact of coronavirus and get the country back on the growth track.

But the ground realities speak otherwise. With nearly 10,000 new corona cases, India is on course to overtake Britain in the global list of countries. The death toll rose to 8,102. The United Kingdom, which is the fourth worst-hit nation, has over 2.91 lakh cases. The Indian claim that over 1.41 lakh people have been discharged as against 1.37 lakh active cases is, however, of little significance. This is neither the beginning of the end of the epidemic nor the arrival of the ‘peak’.

Though Modi said that people-centric, people-driven and planet-friendly development is the part of the governance, the fact is he has been primarily concerned to help and promote the rich and middle class and not the common people. He harped on the need for “intent, inclusion, investment, infrastructure, and innovation” to get back on the path of growth, but it is simply a hoax. There are no takers for Modi’s rhetoric.

It is a widely known that India is on decline in every field, whether it is industrial growth, employment or economy. Data from CMIE’s Consumer Pyramids Household Survey presents a disturbing story of young Indians who have just stepped into the labour markets. Youngsters in the age group 20-24 years accounted for 8.5 per cent of the total employed persons in the country in 2019-20. But, they accounted for 11 per cent of those who lost jobs. 34.2 million of these young men and women were working in 2019-20. In April 2020 their numbers were down to 20.9 million. Over 13 million youngsters lost their jobs in the lockdown.

Another 14 million jobs were lost in the age-group 25-29 years. This loss again, was disproportionately high. This group accounted for 11.1 per cent of total employment in 2019-20 but it accounted for 11.5 per cent of the job losses. Over 27 million youngsters in their 20s lost their jobs in April. This has serious long-term repercussions.

The most ridiculous step that Modi government has initiated is to sale the Maharatna and Navratna PSUs which have been making huge earnings. Several of 'maharatna' and 'navratna' companies, including ONGC, IOC, GAIL and NTPC, could soon become independent board-run entities outside the scrutiny of CAG and CVC if the government implements a proposal to take out the PSU tag from some of the entities after its shareholding falls below the threshold 51 per cent mark.

The government proposes to raise Rs 1.05 lakh crore from disinvestment in the current financial year. It had exceeded asset-sale targets of Rs 1 lakh crore in FY18 and Rs 80,000 crore in FY19. In the current fiscal year, by the end of September, the government had only raised Rs 12,359 crore through disinvestment.

It cannot be denied that Modi completely lacks a perspective vision to govern India. The way he acts simply points to the fact he carries out the directions and suggestions of his corporate friends. He speaks of using the corona crisis to strengthen the economy. But this is simply a facade to hide his failure and raise the bogey of nationalism.

During corona crisis small traders and wage labourers have been the worst sufferers. But he did not do anything for them. Employment among these dropped from an average of 128 million in 2019-20 to 116 in March and then, just 37 million in April. A massive 91 million lost their livelihood in just about a month. It is a human tragedy because these are perhaps, the most vulnerable parts of society. They eke out a living out from their daily earnings. At the same time 18 million business persons are estimated to have lost employment in April 2020. Salaried employees have suffered a huge loss. Their count dropped from 86 million in 2019-20 to 68 million in April 2020. This implies a drop of 21 per cent. Or, one in every five salaried employees seems to have lost jobs during the lockdown.

The estimates of India’s job losses are more than four times the 30 million Americans who’ve filed for unemployment benefits over six weeks. Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director and CEO, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), said. "The employment rate has fallen from 40 per cent in February to 26 per cent now. This implies that 14 per cent of the working age population has lost employment. The working age population is of the order of a billion,"

The prospect for Modi supporters is not better. The unemployment rate in urban India surged to 30 and 31 per cent, respectively in the first and second weeks of the lockdown. "Then, in the following two weeks it fell rather sharply to 23 and 25 per cent. This is a rather sharp fall in the unemployment rate in urban India although it remains quite elevated," the report said. (IPA Service)