Modi's budget 'reflects' minimum govt for people, maximum support to crony capitalism

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*
Budgets are political visions with economic planning based on resource allocation and revenue generation to face the crisis, fulfil the needs and desires of citizens, and shape the path towards future prosperity of society. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget speech and her budget documents in the tablet made by a South Korean company and backed up in a tablet made by a Taiwanese company does not develop digital infrastructure.
The presentation of budget in a tablet does not make digital India. The higher investment in health and education can only shape both agrarian and industrial revolution for digital India. The abysmal social spending makes this budget as one of the worst in independent India.
It shows lack of priorities and commitment for the people and their everyday needs. The government shows no commitment to invest in the people of India. The Modi-led BJP government has failed the people of India yet again in the Budget 2021-21.
It is a document of apathy. The budget lacks missions and visions to move India and Indians in the path of economic growth and human development. The budget has failed to ensure health, education, employment and other essential welfare service to the people of India.
The half-hearted documentation of data, time gaps, fictional accounts with dubious presentation in the budget makes it more as a propaganda document than a serious and trustworthy economic exercise to revive India’s growth story. But the budget doesn’t reveal the amount that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to spend for his advertisements and propaganda.
In spite of all limitations, the Budget 2021 shows its unflinching commitment to neoliberal economic policy prescriptions shaped by the corporates and for the crony capitalist classes in India and abroad. The budget also shows the hollowness of so-called economic nationalism of RSS and BJP.
The idea of deception is written within ideological narratives and political strategies of Hindutva quackery. There is neither anything bold nor any cure in it. The budget is a Hindutva guide to economic recovery where the corporates profits and mass miseries are ensured.
This budget is another shock therapy to Indian economy and society to deepen the crisis further. There is no plan to fight poverty and unemployment in this budget. It truly upholds Modi’s idea of minimum government for people and maximum support for his crony capitalist friends.
He returns the favour to his corporate friends who support him with election expenses through electoral bonds. It is a corporate budget devoid of democratic accountability to the electorates. Yet, people believe in Hindutva quackery and their aggressive propaganda that ruins India and Indians.
The budget will neither inspire demand nor fuel production and distribution. It will further intensify crises of availability and accessibility of essential goods and services. This budget will further marginalise people and ensure the deepening of poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, illiteracy, ill-health and economic crisis.

Indians in hopeless condition believe in Hindutva thrust of Modi. Indians are seeking relieve from their immediate pain and suffering

These conditions of crises are essential requirements for the sustainability of Hindutva . A combination of crisis trap created by conditions of poverty, ignorance and illiteracy produces Hindutva quackery in Indian politics, culture and society.
The RSS trained Hindutva campfollowers hide their deceptive practices and ignorance by shouting aggressively about their power and skills in crowded streets, marketplaces and in remote villages. The Hindutva protagonists use every opportunity to promote themselves as only alternatives.
Quacks hypnotise their victims by the sugar-coating propaganda skills driven by organisational networks and fear mongering propaganda. The RSS and BJP follows dictums of such quackery in letter and spirit. The corporate mass media is their biggest asset to hide the arrogance and ignorance of Hindutva.
Indian population in hopeless condition believe in Hindutva thrust of Modi. Indians are seeking relieve from their immediate pain and sufferings. But Hindutva cannot help people to recover from pain and sufferings. They need to understand: The path of peace, prosperity, good health and education, scientific ethos, social harmony, secured employment and conscious citizens are perennial threats to very existence of Hindutva.
Indeed, Hindutva shaped and led by the RSS and BJP is using every opportunity to stop the path of economic growth and social development in India. Conditions of crisis are a perfect condition for Hindutva control in order to manipulate and dominate India and Indians for a long time.
Be that as it may, history has witnessed to the limited life span of all quacks. All their quackery always bites the dustbin of history. It ends as soon as mass consciousness spreads. Mass consciousness and mass struggle against Hindutva is the only hope for peace and progress in India. The future of Hindutva quackery will be no different in India.
This budget reflects that the Modi-led BJP government is ignorant about basics of Indian economics, democratic politics and inclusive culture in India.
---
*University of Glasgow, UK

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Search This Blog