For BJP bumpkins, mocking Rajan-Rahul dialogue easier than offering a critique

Obviously, Rahul Gandhi and Raghuram Rajan are of a similar construct. Gandhi is not in Rajan's league, of course, but he does have a degree in development economics from Cambridge University. And as I ask many of my friends who fall for the BJP IT cell's painting of him as a country bumpkin, how many of those trolls, or even they themselves, can lay claim to Oxbridge degrees?

Even with a legitimate medical degree of his own, the BJP’s spokesperson Dr Sambit Patra had no idea what the ‘19’ in CoVid-19 stood for when questioned on live television. That should be his domain knowledge, even if he could be forgiven for being unable to recite a chaupai from the Ramcharitmanas or did not know how many zeros there are in a trillion. Yet he considers himself competent enough to mock both Gandhi and Rajan for their dialogue which revealed each has a firm grip over his own domain.

Last week’s conversation between them on the fallout of the Coronavirus on the Indian economy was indeed very revealing, not the least because Rajan’s simple solutions also showed up the Modi government, like Patra, as the true bumpkins they really were with absolutely no ideas and certainly no solutions at all. A point underlined earlier by the managing director of Bajaj Auto, Rajiv Bajaj, who famously said, “The lockdown is a solution that is creating the problem.”

But in the Rajan dialogue, I was more impressed by one emphasis of Rahul Gandhi's - inequality in Indian society. Economics is ultimately about equal opportunities but we do not see that in India in any sphere, including the political and social. In response to a question to him by Dr Rajan, Gandhi was clear – there are inequalities at all levels in Indian society, happening for decades and happening even now in times of Coronavirus.

A day after their conversation actor Rishi Kapoor died of cancer. His daughter Riddhima, a resident of New Delhi, wished to attend his funeral. The Delhi police escorted her to the airport where she boarded a special flight all by and for herself to Mumbai. Which was a nice gesture by the government, for children should be able to bid their fathers goodbye and I am happy she could do so.

But I couldn't help thinking of Colonel Navjot Singh Bal who had died a few days earlier of cancer of the arm in Bangalore. He was a Shaurya Chakraawardee, a hero who had fought terrorists on the Kashmr border and, when diagnosed, he even learnt to shoot with his left hand. He died alone in Bangalore.

But when his parents asked for similar facilities to fly out to him and conduct his funeral, they had to run from pillar to post during the lockdown with no bureaucrat or politician willing to help the parents of this national hero. They eventually were forced to drive from Amritsar to Bengaluru, an arduous journey by road and could see him only because they were an army family and the army honoured their feelings. So why was the family of one hero more deserving than that of another, I wondered and realised Rahul Gandhi was absolutely right about inequalities existing in this country beyond castes and religions.

“Even during this time,” he said and I recalled how a minister’s daughter was driven back home to Bihar while the daughter of a labourer walked home hundreds of kilometres from Telangana to Chhattisgarh, collapsed and died just 11 kms short of her home in the village.

So, what was stopping the current dispensation from making arrangements for all migrant workers to reach their homes safely? Obviously, there is a lot of inequality in this country where migrant labourers who, according to Dr Rajan, will need only Rs 65,000 crore to be fed and given token cash to survive the next four months, do not even have food and shelter as against the Rs 68,000 crore owed by a handful of rich defaulters that was quietly written off by the banks under the watchful eye of the Reserve Bank of India.

Inequality anyone? Particularly when the same banks harass farmers and other borrowers who may have difficulty paying back sums of one lakh rupees or less, miniscule in comparison?

Both Dr Rajan and Rahul Gandhi were of the view that ‘one size fits all' was not the model that should be followed by India as it has been doing lately. The Modi regime's voodoo economics, starting from a completely unnecessary demonetisation that did not serve any of the purposes it claimed to have, and the absolutely uninformed formulation of the Goods and Services Tax – which Gandhi has been describing as the Gabbar Singh Tax – had already done enormous harm to the economy even before the Coronavirus completed the process of devastation.

I have heard many people say in the past weeks that the pandemic has pulled Modi's irons out of the fire because now he can wholly blame the recession on the virus. Even that would be fine, provided the government had a plan to pull us out of the crisis. But it is obvious from the third lockdown that it does not, neither with regard to health measures nor on how to restart an economy they deliberately shut down.

I shudder to think of the consequences of their ham-handed actions. How are states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar going to re-absorb lakhs of workers who return? Do they even have a health infrastructure in place and they certainly would not have any means to provide these workers with sustenance. Else they would not have migrated to richer states like Maharashtra and Gujarat in the first place.

The mood of the migrant workers has changed and they would rather be at home, die among their loved ones if they have to, than far away from home, all alone, like Colonel Bal. At least his parents had the resources to reach him. The families of migrant workers may not even come to know for years whether their loved ones live or have died.

Does anyone see the consequences of that mood of retreat among migrant workers for the states south of the Vindhyas which thrived on the labour of those from the north? Dr Rajan and Gandhi, though, have the right ideas – a bottom up, village by village resurrection that is the best solution under the circumstances.

The ideas have been articulated. Will those in charge be able to execute and implement them? Given the amount of applesauce this government makes us consume, I seriously doubt we are anything but stewed.

(Views expressed in the column are personal)