Skip to main content

National development? Begun by Congress, Modi 'selling away' shared life, resources

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

The Indian National Congress under the leadership of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for the beginning of half-hearted liberalisation policies in the name of economic development and modernisation in India. The half-hearted liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies became the cornerstone of new economic policies launched by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.
These policies are in full swing under the Hindutva laissez-faire under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose mantra is based on the idea of ‘minimum government and maximum governance’. The market forces and corporates are absolutely free to rob public resources without any form of deterrence.
From river, sand, fishing, water to land, forests, woodlands, playgrounds, mining and minerals are for sale. From defence sectors to banking, postal, railways, health, education, road and transportation sectors are controlled by the market forces.
There is nothing in India which can’t be sold under the Hindutva government led by Modi. The Congress party has laid the foundation of this process of robbery and Hindutva forces are accelerating the process and institutionalising it as a norm of everyday lives in India.
The privatisation of public resources is not only about transfer of ownership and profit to the private corporations. It is a process of privatising profits and socialising risk. The Hindutva theft of the commons is a capitalist pursuit to dismantle collective foundation of society and public ownership of resources. It is in a direction of no return where pursuit of profit, atomisation of individual life is central to the growth of market and corporations.
The growth of urban monoculture and ghettoization of lives within housing estates dictate norms of everyday life where individuals mortgage their future and freedom in search of a house in the city. The villages were destroyed by ruining the sources of livelihoods of the villagers. The commercialisation and commodification of lives and livelihoods are the only common culture between urban and rural areas in India today.
Hindutva forces are spreading the politics of otherness and hate in everyday life which brings rural and urban areas together against the religious minorities and marginalised communities. The sense of fear and hate are the twin pillars on which urban and rural India is standing to confront a miserable future created by the Hindutva politics.
Poverty, unemployment, hunger, homelessness and crime are five net outcomes of Hindutva robbery of India and Indians. The destruction of public resources, public images, public institutions and fellow feelings are central to Hindutva hegemony over society and politics, and crony capitalist control over economy. These processes help in the atomisation project that is concomitant with capitalism. Hindutva and capitalism are twin forces that accelerate unhitched robbery of life, liberty and livelihoods in India.
Hindutva is a class war and unprecedented class robbery unleashing on Indian masses. Their agricultural land, river, forest, playgrounds, airports, schools, colleges and universities, hospitals are either captured or waiting to be captured by the Hindutva crony capitalist thieves.
The cultural, religious and social genocides are conducted by the Hindutva forces in the name of nationalism to control, manage, manipulate, sabotage and dismantle any form of unity among working people against this Hindutva robbery to uphold the interests of few corporations in India. The people and their constitutional citizenship rights are disposables.
Hindutva is a collective robbery of public imagination in India. The state power provides legitimacy to such a process that legalised robbery as an art and a beautiful product of previous Karma. The unpolluted and simple people were manipulated to vote such a political process that had not expected that ‘Achhe din’ (good days) means loss of livelihoods, peace, social solidarity and cultural bond among people.
The shared life and resources are ruined in the name of national development, but the reality is different. It is an organised tragedy of all Indians. If you are a Kashmiri, a Muslim, a Dalit, a worker and a tribal, your tragedy is multiplied with every passing every seconds. Hindutva generates multiple forms of tragedies in the name of fake nationalism to legitimise robbery. Hindutva destroys a sense of collective belonging to a place and people by dividing people in religious lines. The monolithic and ethnic nationalism of Hindutva is western European in letter and spirit. It is alien to India and Indians.
It is within this context, one needs to understand Hindutva robbery of society, culture, religion, politics, economy and nationalism in India. The very survival of India and Indians depend on the defeat of these forces working overtime and unleashing a terror of the theft of the commons. The alternative narrative needs to be based on the interests of the masses and their control over all public resources in India.
To stop the privatisation of India, Indians must stop buying electoral promises from the political market of Hindutva. A collective electoral boycott of Hindutva is the immediate alternative that can halt the forward march of Hindutva robbery in India.
---
*University of Glasgow, UK

Comments

TRENDING

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram*   When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

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.

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".

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.

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. 

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos  The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

The selective memory of a violent city: Uttam Nagar and the invisible victims of Delhi

By Sunil Kumar*  Hundreds of murders take place in Delhi every year, yet only a few incidents become topics of nationwide discussion. The question is: why does this happen? Today, the incident in Uttam Nagar has become the centre of national debate. A 26-year-old man, Tarun Kumar, was killed following a dispute that reportedly began after a balloon hit a small child. In several colonies of Delhi, slogans such as “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram” are being raised while demanding the death penalty for Tarun’s killers. As a result, nearly 50,000 residents of Hastsal JJ Colony are now living in what resembles a state of confinement. 

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.

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.