Narendra Modi is clearly caught in a time warp created by his delusions and stubborn refusal to read the Lok Sabha verdict correctly.
In Russia, as usual, he addressed the Indian diaspora and described India as full of doom and gloom before 2014! He said pretty much the same thing after his 2014 victory, when, in Seoul and Shanghai, he suggested no progress had been made in the previous 70 years and that before he came to power “people used to wonder what sin they had committed in their past life which resulted in them being born in India.”
While the PM tried to hard sell this ‘before and after’ picture of his 10-year rule, it was left to the father of a Gujarati youth killed in the Ukraine war while serving the Russian army to deliver a stern reality check.
“What is there in India? We are ready to move to Russia… I am ready to give up Indian citizenship,” said Ashvinbhai Mangukiya, father of young Hemil who was killed in a Ukrainian air strike in Russia in February. Russia has offered Rs 1.3 crore as compensation to the family and Russian citizenship too.
Ashvinbhai, who spoke to The Hindu’s Vijaita Singh, can bring Modi out of his delusional state and tell him there are no quality jobs for the youth in India anymore. Ten years of Modi have seen unprecedented joblessness as most government data points reveal. No wonder, young men from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan are willing to put themselves in harm’s way by taking up jobs in Israel and Russia in the midst of the deadly wars those countries are waging. His is the most stinging indictment of Modi’s economic performance – or lack of it. How else can you describe India’s predicament when Modi has to ask Putin to speedily repatriate the desperate Indians fighting Russia’s war in Ukraine (as mere ‘helpers’) while the father of a dead Indian soldier is saying there is nothing left in India and he too wants to migrate to Russia.
Joblessness has peaked in India during the the BJP-led regime, whatever his spin doctors might argue. I distinctly remember Modi telling enthusiastic youth in UP and Bihar during the 2014 election campaign, “You give me 10 years and I will transform your lives”. Well, Modi has had ten years already and he has just ended up seeking the return of desperate Indian youth fighting other people’s wars abroad because there are no jobs in India.
Also read: Some Proof Required: Modi Government’s Abysmal Record of No Jobs
Modi has presided over the highest level of unemployment in 45 years and the lowest average GDP growth and per capita income growth in any decade since reforms began in 1991. His economic record is so poor that no amount of lipstick on this pig will suffice or help hide the harsh reality. Modi’s decade in power has seen the lowest growth in private investment. In fact, possibly out of fear, Indian corporate honchos happily kept feeding Modi’s delusional narrative that India was the most attractive destination for investments globally when they themselves had not made any new investments. Largely because India has seen the most tepid private consumption over the last decade. When consumption demand is so low how will new investments come? This is a matter of great concern even today because private consumption accounts for nearly 60% of India’s GDP growth. Average private consumption growth over the last decade has been barely 3% annually, as per data released by the government some time ago. How will new private investments fructify in such circumstances?
Moreover, the government’s own periodic labour force survey has shown wage growth in India stagnating and declining sharply in real terms over the five years from 2017-18 to 2022-23.
The just released Annual Survey of Unincorporated Enterprises – which basically covers unregistered small and micro enterprises – showed how employment in this space has declined in absolute terms by 1.7 million from 2015-16 to 2022-23 even when the actual number of such enterprises had growth by 2 million in the same period. Labour economist Santosh Mehrotra calls this a classic case of jobless growth. He says youth unemployment (15 to 29 years) has doubled to 12% in 2022-23 compared to 2011-12. He reckons the actual figure of youth unemployment is much higher as India treats a very large number of people (about 90 million) as employed when they are actually unpaid workers in family owned enterprises with low productivity. No other country follows this methodology and even the ILO does not treat unpaid family workers as employed.
This week, Citi group’s research team spoke the truth when it said even a 7% GDP growth rate will not solve the problem of acute joblessness as it won’t be able to absorb the 12 million youths entering the labour market every year. The government contested the Citi report instead of acknowledging the reality that stares at us.
Meanwhile former Chief Economic Advisor in NDA-I , Arvind Subramanian, wrote an article in the Indian Express recently suggesting foreign investment into India has been very weak because the Modi government’s policy promoting “national champions” – seen as cronies by most rational observers – has greatly enhanced the risk factor for foreign companies looking to invest in India. Net foreign investment (FDI) as a ratio of GDP has collapsed from an average 2% of GDP until a few years ago to 0.5% of GDP in 2023-24, the lowest in a decade.
Recently The Hindu reported how new domestic private investments in the pipeline had also slumped to a 20 year low in April to June 2024.
Taken together, if this is the reality, then one can well imagine what the future holds for Indian youths seeking quality jobs.
Modi’s economic policies over ten years have broadly empowered big businesses by improving their profitability but structurally eviscerated micro and small enterprises where most employment is generated.
Consequently, the bottom 70% of the population has seen severe income stagnation accompanied by high food inflation in recent years. It is time Modi stopped talking about the gloom before 2014 and looked closely at the deepening distress in the economy he is supposed to be in charge of – which resulted in his being cut down to size by the Indian electorate.
Surely he must introspect over why even among the 82 crore people benefiting from free rations many have voted against the BJP.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
