Dear Prime Minister
Government of India
New Delhi
First, congratulations for successfully completing seven months as the Prime Minister of India. Secondly, I would like to congratulate you for taking various initiatives in the 200 days. It is very challenging to lead a multi-cultural society like India.
We also need to understand that, India is a country where vegetables are sold on footpaths and footwear in air conditioned showrooms. India is a country where we spend more money on our daughters’ wedding than on their education. India is a country where you need to have studied till class 8th to become a peon but you don’t need any qualification to run the country. India is a country where sayings like Ladki ghar ki laxmi hai and Ladki baap ka bojh hoti hai co-exist. India is a country where it is ranked 6th in the number of billionaires per country and it’s also the home to 1/3 of the world’s extreme poor. In our elections, we don’t vote for the candidates we like the most but we vote for the one we dislike the least. India is a country where Priyanka Chopra earned more money playing Mary Kom than Mary Kom earned in her entire career. India is a country where most people who fight over the Gita and the Qur’ān have probably never read either of these books.
After you were declared Prime Ministerial candidate by the BJP for the General Elections 2014, a lot of criticism from intellectuals, activists, political analysts, writers, etc. poured in. You were the most criticised and controversial Prime Ministerial candidate ever in the history of the nation. You were criticised for your role in the Gujarat riots in 2002 which killed hundreds of people, you were criticised for forcefully grabbing the land from the farmers to give it to the Tatas, you were criticised for providing manipulated data and proposing Gujarat as a model of development across the country, you were criticised for distributing oil wells and coal mines to corporate houses, you were criticised for not having Lokayukta in the state, you were criticised for promoting caste superiority through the education system and what not. In spite of all this criticism, you managed to gain the confidence of 31% of the voters. So much blame surrounded you but it seems like media did the trick. This showed how easy it is to fool Indians if you can control the media and the corporates in the right manner.
During the last 200 days, we happened to witness many incidents. But on a few occasions there were few instances which looked very shocking and stupid to me. These instances made me wonder as to where our country is heading. You might have planned all this in the view of your election slogan ‘Achay Din’. The following are some of the instances which have shocked me:
i. Huge Borrowing in the 2014-15 Budget:
According to the Union budget 2013-14, India was paying 18% of its income as Interest. According to your first Union Budget 2014-15, India will be paying 20% of its income as Interest, this shows that there is a 2% increase. In spite of this increase in the interest payment, the Union Budget states that it will be receiving 24% of its income from borrowings and other liabilities, which will surely increase the amount of interest to be paid in the coming years.
We work hard, we pay taxes and the Government pays the money to the World Bank and other organisations in the form of interest. Can the Indian economy improve if we have such high rate of borrowing and interest payments? What are the think-tanks doing? What are our economists doing? Why can’t we plan our expenditure based on our income? This reminds me of two proverbs, “Stretch your arm no further than your sleeve will reach” and “Stretch your feet according to your blanket”. What do you prefer?
ii. Building the Statue of Unity:
Your government has decided to spend not less than Rs. 2,980 crores to build the Statue of Unity in the memory of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, which is going to be the tallest statue in the world. The statue can benefit the country only in two ways. One, our country’s name will appear in the Guinness Book of World Records as it is going to be the world’s biggest statue; and the other, you will be able to take the credit of building the statue of unity and to relate yourself as the ambassador of Unity.
On the other hand, one of the biggest problems faced by India is Poverty. India is a home to 1/3 of the world’s extreme poor. The World Bank, in 2010, based on 2005 PPPs International Comparison Programme, estimated 32.7% of Indian population (400 million) lived below $1.25 per day on purchasing power parity basis. According to the United Nations Development Programme, an estimated 29.8% of Indians lived below poverty line in 2009-2010. There are so many houses which do not have lavatories. There are so many people who do not have a job. There are so many children who are unable to get quality education.
According to the Global Slavery Index 2014, India is the world’s Slavery Capital. It stated that India and Pakistan alone account for over 45% of total global enslaved population and have highest prevalence of modern slavery in Asia. The Index said, “Particularly in countries such as India and Pakistan, nationals, often including entire families, are enslaved through bonded labour in construction, agriculture, brick making, garment factories and manufacturing.” Modern slavery exists in all 167 countries with five countries accounting for 61% of the world’s population living in modern slavery. What should be our priority?
iii. Stand on the Israel attack on Gaza:
First, your External Affairs Minister issued a statement which equated both sides as responsible for the violence. Following this, when in the Lok Sabha, the members of Opposition parties demanded that the Government condemn the Israeli violence in Gaza, it refused to do so. Subsequently, in the Rajya Sabha where the violence in Gaza was listed for a short duration discussion, the Government refused to conduct the discussion. Your Foreign Minister shamelessly said, “The Government considered both Israel and Palestine as our friends.” Does it mean that we will not respond when a wolf is torturing the lamb because the wolf is our friend? Is it not the height of stupidity?
iv. National Policies:
It is too soon to pass a judgement on your government. But let us try to understand what policy packages you are trying to sell? When the Congress wanted to implement ‘Aadhaar’, your party was against it and now you have said that they will implement ‘Aadhaar’. You have taken ‘Financial Inclusion’ and called it ‘Jan Dhan Yojna’. You have taken ‘Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan’ and called it ‘Swatch Bharat’. You are just taking the existing schemes of the Congress and applying lipstick and trying to sell it again. Where are the substantial policy changes? We can conclude by saying that you are a great salesman rather than a statesman. You are repackaging and selling schemes which were introduced by the Congress Government.
v. Your First 100 Days:
The Media has celebrated the 100 days of your government in a great style. Now let us try to understand what has happened in Rural India in the first 100 days of your governance. According to police, 46,000 farmers have attempted suicide. According to the police, there is 1 death for 10 to 12 suicide attempts but according to Sneha (an NGO working with suicide victims) states that there is 1 death for 15 suicide attempts. So we can conclude that 46,000 to 69,000 farmers have attempted suicide in the first 100 days of your governance.
Thousands of children have died in the country due to hunger and malnourishment related diseases. Thousands of children have entered grade 3 and grade 4 of malnourishment; from grade 3 it is very difficult to get the child back to normal condition and from grade 4 it is impossible to come back to normal. And when all this is happening, your government writes-off 1,45,753 crores in concessions to the richest 1% or 2% of the country, according to your Union Budget.
vi. Abortion till 24th weeks may become legal:
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s maternal health division has proposed to amend the existing Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, to allow abortion until the 24th week of pregnancy, a report said on 1 November. The proposed Act, which will be called the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2014, has been put up on the website of the health ministry for people to review till 10 November, after which the draft will be finalised. In February 2013, the National Commission for Women, after reviewing the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, recommended to the Union Health Ministry that abortions till the 24th weeks of pregnancy may be allowed.
But, medical science states that the heart starts beating in the 4th week, the foetus takes the shape of a baby in the 13th week, the hearing ability comes in the 19th week and in the 24th week the organs would have formed and would start functioning albeit crudely, the baby weighs around 600 grams, he would measure 30 cm from head to heel, its taste buds would have fully developed, the footprints and the fingerprints continue its formation. The billion dollar question is, aren’t we taking the life of a child which is yet to be born?
To conclude the letter, the country has witnessed many controversies during the last 200 days and all the credit goes to you. The aspiration behind engineering such controversies is to deviate people’s attention from real issues, because your government has totally failed in fulfilling its promises and tackling real issues. You failed to bring back the black money stashed abroad, you failed to resolve various issues such as farmers problems, unemployment, price rise, border security, etc. You have come to power with the help of corporates; so, you will definitely serve the corporates interest by side-lining the people’s interest. That is why during the ‘Make in India’ campaign launch, the people who were sitting in the first row were from Reliance, Tata, Wipro, ICICI, Birla, etc. Where was the common man? Was the campaign only for the corporate or for the common man as well? India needs a man of actions and not a man of words.
On the other hand, it is time for us to learn from a small country like Bolivia. It has reduced poverty and inequality more than any country in the Western Hemisphere over the last 10 years by increasing the minimum wage 87%, doubling investment in schools and healthcare, and lowering the pension retirement age from 65 to 60. The government paid for these programmes by increasing taxes on oil profits from 18% to 82%, which also allowed the country to eliminate its debt and amass the world’s largest surplus. Bolivia is now estimated to have the region’s fastest growing economy this year and next, according to the IMF.
The million dollar question is: has your 3M Phenomena (Modi, Media and Model) begun to fade. All this is not rocket science, it is simple logic but why don’t we still understand all this. We need to open our eyes and need to take all these issues seriously. We don’t see any ‘Achey Din’ as everything is going into the ‘Bin’, so can you ‘Win’, while trying to lead the nation without committing a ‘Sin’.
Syed Kazim