The politics of Spin and Promises of Hot Air!!

There is neither growth nor new jobs in India. More and more people are losing jobs. Economy in bad shape. Jobs are rare in the organised sector. Manufacturing output reduced. IT sector has more lay off rather than recruitment. More than 850 Engineering colleges asked for closure as there as there are less and less students ready to study engineering. And Demonitization killed millions of jobs in the unorganised sector. Most of the big ticket promises did not deliver : Make India, Skill India, Swatch Bharath, Ganga Cleaning, bring back the black money, reduce terrorism - the lists are too many. Made every poor to take bank accounts - and their bank accounts are empty.- like all other empty promises.

Despite all troubles for the poor and ordinary people who form almost 90% of the people, the rich seems to happy and getting richer and richer. It seems it is a government for the rich, by the rich and of the rich. It is the crony capitalists and their propaganda media that spin the stories of 'New India' of the neo-rich. Poor children will continue to die. Meanwhile, the government spent Rs 1100 crore to feature the Prime Minister from June 2104 to August 2016. This does not include the print advertisement.This is apart from the huge ad campaign at all the petrol pumps owned by the Indian Oil and Bharat petroleum. The aggressive advertisement campaign is on the one hand a way of bribing the established media and on the other hand it creates delusions of development through loads and loads of spin - basically promising 'New India' for the middle -class when children continue to die due to poverty and malnutrition. And the violent and aggressive crony media and their angry anchors divert attention everyday to conceal the real stories of broken promises.

While politics of spins and diverting the attention worked for a while , the story on the ground is that people are increasingly distressed and frustrated on the ground. While the paid surveys and the paid social media campaigners will project the invincibility of and popularity of the PM the situation on the ground tells a different story. This is not only based on the data that speak so clearly, but this is also based on various inputs coming across the country. So 2019 will not be a cake walk of Modi despite the entire propaganda machine make people believe so. If the opposition come together, it will be a repeat of 2004 election.

Economy is in bad shape and growth has reduced to 5.7% despite all efforts to manipulate data. In the last year of UPA , the economic growth was 6.9%. What was the promise? We will make the economic growth double digit. GDP growth has been bee declining over the last six quarters in a steady manner. Bank credit growth in the last six months since November has been around 4% and this is the lowest recorded in 60 years. From a high of 11.1 percent consumer durables output in May 2014, the output in March 2017 stands at (-)0.8 percent. From just Rs 2.34 lakh crore in June 2014, the bad loans of 26 public sector banks has ballooned to Rs 6.46 lakh crore as of December 2016. The debt of Adani group alone is a whopping 72000 crore, equivalent to the entire farm debt of India. As per the credit swiss report Reliance group owes the bank 1.25 lakhs crore towards the end of 2015 and the chances are it might have further increased. Vednata groups owns banks more than 1 lkahs core. And now look at the value of the rupee. It has fallen further. In last November, Indian Rupee hit the lowest.There are so much of data to show the big gap between promises and performance; rhetoric and reality.
India's trade deficit ( gap between exports and imports) declined from$ 190.3 billion in 2012-13 to $ 118.7 in 2016. Despite slight increase in Foreign Direct investment , economy is still in trouble.

Now it is crystal clear promise of robust and revitalized economy is full of hot hair. Economy on the ground is in bad shape. Prices are going up. When the international oil prices are going down, in India it has been going up. Basically taking a huge chunk of indirect taxes from people- mostly affecting the poor more than the rich.

GST was introduced with lots of fan-fare as usual. And implemented very badly where people end up paying almost double indirect taxes. And the way GST is implimented is further hurting small and medium size traders and business. Like Demoneitization. The trend is that very awkward implementation with lots adverse impact on the people , particularly poor. Though standardization is promised, reality is that indirect taxes has increased

Jobs are rare. Small scale business , trade and enterprises are in distress. 2.5 lakhs of small and medium level industries were reported to have gone our of production. This means millions of employment lost. The fact of the matter is that 85% of work force in India is in the unorganised sector- and this means around 480 million people. Who are those working in the unorganized sector?- self-employed, lower-middle lass, vulnerable poor and poor- or the 'commoners' of India. And it is precisely this sector affected most due to the ill panned and ill implemented awkward demonetization. In the last two years, 2015 and 2016, the average employment generation has plummeted to less than 2 lakh jobs a year. This is less than 25% of the annual employment generated before 2011. IT sector itself is estimated to lay off 6 laksh people in the next two years. The non-governmental organisations and charities provide more than three million jobs in India. With the restriction of foreign funding and restrictive environment for civil society in general and non-government organisations in particular, thousands of people have already lost jobs and will further increase the loss of jobs .

Demonitization was introduced with fan fare- with a drama- promising that it will erase black money and 'terrorism'. Many middle class and elites on social media and elsewhere said it was a 'brilliant' stroke- and many news papers were full with stories of spin that demoneitzation was smart. But it was bad economics and and now proving to be also bad politics.After almost an year, what is the result? Economy in bad shape. No black money is erased. And the situation has become worse. This is precisely the saffron propaganda managers try to divert attention with wrong spin such as "killing fields of Kerala" while the real killing field is the killing of jobs, informal sector and agriculture the back bone of this country.

What is the the track record of agriculture? Three years of NDA produced 1.7% growth in agriculture!! And what was the agriculture growth in the last three years of UPA government ? it was 3.5 %. And in fact the agriculture distress and the increase debt trap of farmers are pushing many in to death and huge financial crisis in the villages. Farm commodity prices have hit very badly. As per statistics furnished by the Union government to the Supreme court more than 12000 framers and agricultural labours commit suicide every years.

And the inequality is on the rise. The Richest 1% of indians own 58% of the total wealth of India. 57 billionaires in India now have same wealth ($ 216 billion) as that of the bottom 70 per cent population of the country. While the farmers, 480 million people in the unorganised sectors and the poor lost out, the big companies grew bigger and bigger. Of course, one of the big stories of growth is that of Adani group reported to be very close to the PM. The consolidated profits(after tax) of Adani ports have increased by 35% in 2016-17. As per the release of Adani group, the net profit of Adani Enterprises, the flagship company is 33%.
While the number of billionaires increased, India still has the largest
number of poor people. Malnutrition is the highest in the world. Percapita public expenditure is one of the lowest. Bullets trains are promised for the rich and bullets are delivered to the writers, activists and journalists critique the politics of hate and exclusion.

What is clear is the huge gap between the promises and performance of the government. There has been spin, spin and spin - and also telling the invincibility of Modi. And media managers of the government and the ruling party giving a sense 2019 election will be a cake-walk for the boss. It will not be.

The big story is that people are angry and distressed. People are beginning to realize that jobs are not coming. Make India was simply lots of big talk- and less of the real performance and this is going to be reflected in the election. The question is whether the opposition parties and leaders understand this reality and make difference by coming together to expose the lie of India growing and shining.