Skip to main content

One nation, one tax, one market? Harmful impact on rural poor, small businesses

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 
High inflation, growing unemployment and depreciating rupee are three fundamental issues faced by Indian economy today. The educational and health infrastructure is falling apart. Human development is in the bottom of the nadir. The Modi government has no plans to take responsibility to navigate Indian economy away from these crises.
It is passing on its responsibility on Indian people by reckless hiking of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on food and other essential items. This nationwide rent seeking activities in terms of high taxation on goods and services that are part of the rent-seeking process.
It will have devastating impact on poor and malnourished population, small businesses and rural poor. Such a policy will help corporates and it is going to push poor people into a regime of inescapable hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity. Hindutva is transforming India into a rent seeking market society, where welfare and social loss is immanent.
The GST hike will have negative impact on all Indians and on all sectors of Indian economy. Taxing small producers, businesses and poor consumers are opposed to the idea of economic growth and development as it creates conditions for declining productivity, economic stagnation and inefficiency.
"One Nation, One Tax, One Market" policy slogan by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has failed to understand the economic diversities in India in terms of its culture of local production and consumption. "One Nation, One Tax, One Market" policy helps to create conditions, where India becomes increasing dominated by few crony capitalists affiliated with Hindutva.
The international experience of mass rent seeking economics in developed countries show that big corporates grab larger share of the wealth without producing any socially meaningful goods and services. The income inequality is a result of rent seeking market society, where wealthy taxpayers gain. It marginalises the poor masses.
The centralised project of Hindutva dominance over politics and corporate dominance over Indian economy will squeeze all creative potentials and labour power of the people in terms of their livelihoods, productive powers, innovation, and other income generation abilities. Hindutva is a primarily a cultural project to uphold the economic interests of the higher class and higher caste population in India.
The Hindutva government led by Narendra Modi and his party, BJP cares only for electoral victory to uphold its crony capitalist classes. The BJP government does not care for people and the country. The religious mobilisation of people in the name of cultural nationalism is a political strategy that serves the corporates at the cost of lives and livelihoods of Indians.
The market-oriented Hindutva economics creates a tax regime on the masses and a pervasive rent seeking government and a corporatized security state that destroys welfare state in India. It is a well-known fact that mass rent seeking society promotes regimes of bribery, corruption, smuggling and black-market. These are foundations for major revenue loss for a developing country like India.
A mass rent seeking state and government led by Hindutva shows that it has failed to create new wealth by generating mass employment or expanding innovation and economic growth. The sent seeking Hindutva economics is fundamentally inefficient and short-sighted because it reduces productive power of the economy causes revenue loss and increases economic inequalities.
Hindutva alibi Hindu nationalism, economic growth and development, and India first projects are steps towards cultural, economic and political genocide of constitutional democracy and citizenship rights in India. The centralisation economic project of Hindutva is the politics of dominance over production and consumption; the hike of GST and other forms of taxation is just a means in this direction.
It seeks to transform India into a rent seeking market society, where strongman economics and vigilante politics is normalised as an integral part of everyday lives. Such a strategy helps both Hindutva and their crony capitalist friends.
Hindutva obsession with market dominated economy for economic growth and its politics of dominance must end for any form of security and sustainability of livelihoods of the marginalised masses in India.
The ideas of progress, peace and prosperity are alien to Hindutva politics. Therefore, GST hike on food and other essential commodities and services are neither hurting their human sentiments nor their ideological politics. Their economic policies are directly linked with the immediate gain of their corporate friends, who fund their electoral juggernauts and support the activities of the hate factory called RSS.
The rent seeking market society dominated by corporate oligarchy in alliance with reactionary Hindutva politics put India and Indians into an indefinite darkness. The securitised corporate states and governments have never worked for the welfare of their citizens. It will not do so in India under Hindutva government. The defeat of Hindutva is central to the peace, prosperity and progress of India and Indians.
---
*University of Glasgow, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.
Post a Comment
»

Civil society flags widespread violations of land acquisition Act before Parliamentary panel

By Jag Jivan   Civil society organisations and stakeholders from across India have presented stark evidence before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj , alleging systemic violations of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act, 2013 , particularly in Scheduled Areas and tribal regions.
Post a Comment
»

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.
Post a Comment
»

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai*  The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.
Post a Comment
»

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”
Post a Comment
»

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

​ By Syed Ali Mujtaba*  ​The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.
Post a Comment
»

Concentration of wealth in India at levels 'comparable to colonial times', says new report

By Jag Jivan  A new report published in March 2026 by the Centre for Financial Accountability and the Tax The Top campaign paints a stark picture of deepening economic disparity in India, documenting a concentration of wealth that it argues is “comparable to colonial times.” Titled Wealth Tracker India | Tax the Top. Close the Gap , the compilation presents data from the World Inequality Database and the Hurun Rich List to illustrate the meteoric rise of the ultra-wealthy alongside the stagnation and debt burdens of the majority.
Post a Comment
»

Protesters in UK cities voice concerns over alleged developments in Bastar region

By A Representative   Demonstrations were held across several cities in the United Kingdom on March 28, as groups and activists gathered to protest what they described as state actions in India under the reported “Operation Kagar.”
Post a Comment
»

Beneath the stone: Revisiting the New Jersey mandir controversy

By Rajiv Shah  A recent report published in the British media outlet The Guardian , titled “Workers carved the largest modern Hindu temple in the west. Now, some have incurable lung disease,” took me back to my visits to the New Jersey mandir —first in 2022, when it was still under construction, though parts of it were open to visitors, and again in 2024, after its completion.
Post a Comment
»