Mander calls for nationwide civil disobedience, Baru, Himanshu & Sanyal on Budget 2020

Reality belies passionate rumours

 Neeraj Kaushal | Professor of social policy at Columbia University 

The Times of India

“The lesson for a fiscally constrained federal government is: do not waste funds to conduct a nationwide National Register of Citizens to identify illegal Bangladeshis,” she writes. Kaushal notes that “India’s economic attraction for Bangladeshi immigrants has diminished”. This is because in the past decade, Bangladesh “has more than caught up with India” in terms of growth and according to IMF estimates Bangladesh’s growth rate in the current year will be 8.1 per cent, “far higher” than India’s 4.8 per cent. 

“These economic and demographic trends make nonsense of the rhetoric of BJP on Bangladeshi immigrants into India,” Kaushal writes and adds that “we need to act on actual facts, not guesstimates and passionate rumours”.

Rescuing the Republic 

Harsh Mander | Human rights worker and writer 

The Indian Express

Mander argues that if India needs to be saved from the “ravaging of its soul” by “dangerously divisive project of citizenship rights” then a “nationwide movement of civil obedience… is imperative”. He, however,  notes it will not be enough just for citizens to “boycott the National Population Register and the National Register of Indian Citizens”. 

“It requires all non-BJP governments to join in by refusing to implement both the NPR and the NRIC,” he writes. He adds that while the agitations across the country are “inspiring” and “historic”, it is “unlikely to dent the hubris of the ruling government”. Therefore, he calls for a new form of civil disobedience — “a federal pushback from state governments”. He notes that the central government “cannot implement either the NRIC or the NPR unless state governments make available their staff for the massive operation which involves house-to-house collections of information”. 

He adds that if state governments permit NPR, they will “permit a process of communal targeting that will cause catastrophic suffering”. “There can be no greater betrayal by them of the Constitution,” concludes Mander.

Symbols and slogans of substance 

Ananya Vajpeyi | Fellow at CSDS  and a Visiting Fellow at CRASSH University of Cambridge

The Hindu

Vajpeyi writes that both Republic Day and the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination “ring hollow” given the “conflict between their secular spirit and the sectarian narrative pushed by the incumbent government”. She, however, adds that “India is bubbling over with Gandhian forms of resistance to the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah regimes’s majoritarianism”.

“What is most striking about the current wave of anti-CAA sentiment sweeping India is the way in which symbols and slogans of India’s secularism have been vigorously reclaimed and reasserted by ordinary citizens,” she writes.   

Vajpeyi adds that India’s youth, women and minorities are “embracing the very repertoire of poetry, music, art and theatre that they were told had died along with the Congress Party”. New art, music and slogans are also emerging everyday in defiance. 

“The secular and inclusive character of these symbols, and their reference to a long history of coexistence between myriad communities that constitute India, made them instantly recognisable to the world’s most diverse population merging and melding within one nation,” concludes Vajpeyi.

Sitharaman’s second budget must do what the first didn’t 

Himanshu | JNU professor

Mint 

In his piece, Himanshu calls for a reorientation of “economic priorities” in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s second budget to be announced on 1 February. Sitharaman’s first budget came amid NDA’s “emphatic electoral victory” while the second has comes amid “a sinking economy” alongside “rising inflation, poverty and unemployment,” he adds.   

Himanshu holds the government  accountable for the worsening of the economic crisis that started showing signs five years earlier. He explains that the Centre’s subsequent policies such as the corporate tax rate cut, which has led to a “significant decline in direct tax collections”, only worsened the slowdown.   This caused panic and led to “cutting back essential social sector expenditure” at a time when rural distress is high, he adds.   

Himanshu recommends increasing public expenditure (despite expansion of fiscal deficit) by “rationalising taxes”. Also, the quality of government expenditure must improve in the future. Budget 2020 is also a chance for Sitharaman to “come clean on the basic economic aggregates presented by the government”, he states. 

Budget: The Second Coming

Sanjaya Baru | Distinguished fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi

The Economic Times  

Baru views Budget 2020 as an opportunity for Nirmala Sitharaman to “restore both economic momentum and her political reputation”. No finance minister since Madhu Dandavate in 1990 has received more criticism for a debut Budget than Nirmala Sitharaman, Baru writes. 

“The only difference between 1990 and 2019 is that everyone felt free to lambast and lampoon Dandavate while most now do so with trepidation,” he adds.

This is due to “poor PR on her part”, and the government’s inability to admit that the economy was slowing down followed by “more than necessary” policies like the plan to tap sovereign bonds, Baru states.

Sitharaman “should step up public investment and spending… [and loosen] her purse strings, while setting out a ‘medium term’ agenda for fiscal correction”, recommends Baru. BJP should not waste central government revenues “in the hope of winning the Delhi state assembly elections in the week after Budget presentation”.

The growth roadmap 

Siddhartha Sanyal | Chief Economist & Head Research, Bandhan Bank

The Hindu Business Line 

Sanyal describes Budget 2020 as a “tightrope walk” of balancing a boost to growth and “long-term fiscal discipline commitment”.

For the latter, Sitharaman may “invoke the escape clause in the FRBM Act (that allows up to 50 basis point slippage to the budgeted deficit under exceptional circumstances)”, he adds. The situation may also call for “curtail(ing) expenditure below the budgeted level in order to contain fiscal deficit within 3.8 per cent”, Sanyal explains. 

Sanyal predicts various “headwinds” for fiscal roadmap projections like weak growth momentum, moderate growth of GST and corporate tax collections and “dividends from the RBI and other PSUs may take time to cross the 2019-20 level”. 

Sanyal expects “better targeting” of government spending and a “push towards better social security programmes” in the future. Rather than “looking at the headline deficit numbers”, the Centre must “recalibrate the FRBM roadmap, allowing larger fiscal deficit in the near term” and present “a credible path” to do so, he adds.