Is the Narendra Modi dispensation in India planning to give a quiet burial to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), world’s largest livelihood security program? Signals emanating from the government clearly suggest Prime Minister Modi is indeed keen on dismantling this flagship social security program of the Indian government to curb fiscal profligacy.
However, a clever Modi wants a step-by-step approach toward the ultimate dissolution of MNREGA so that his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gets ample time to cushion the impact of such a disastrous move. More than 50 million rural households across India will be affected by Modi’s reckless decision-making apart from those poor and destitute, who have been benefitted by MNREGA immensely. That MNREGA has a positive impact on social indicators can be ascertained by a 15 percent reduction in malnutrition rate since the launch of this unique program. MNREGA, unless tinkered with, has the potential to bridge the yawning gap between urban and rural India apart from arresting migration of unskilled labors to cities.
Moreover, MNREGA has enhanced the dignity of women by making them an equally important family breadwinner. Interestingly, the decision to undermine MNREGA (a parliament enacted act) — by restricting its coverage area, making it more material intensive and squeezing funds — was taken by the same Modi who loves to flaunt his underprivileged upbringing every now and then. But then, Modi’s subaltern background is too often overshadowed by his instinct to blindly follow those who seek to impose laissez-faire capitalism on India that her society cannot sustain presently. Modi apologists would like the nation to believe that this (abolishing MNREGA and other subsidies meant for the poor) will enable the government to utilize national resources in a more productive manner.
Modi apparently wants the incentives to be eliminated to ensure that the underprivileged can live a dignified life without depending on government doles. Nothing can be more hilarious than this argument because approximately 400 million Indians continue to live below $1.25 per day on purchasing power parity basis. This segment must be provided with state support so that they are not exploited by ultra-left extremists, feeding off poverty. In fact, Modi’s illustrious predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee concurred (in private) with this author’s contention that the poor must be supplied with their basic needs at an economic loss implicit in subsidies and controlled prices. While there is no denying that dismantling of controls and regulations to promote economic efficiency is desirable from a strict theoretical economic perspective, it has to be accepted by all and sundry, at the same time, that economic agents too have their own social responsibilities.
In a country like India where endemic poverty still reigns supreme beyond the glittering lifestyle of metropolitan cities, where ill-fed and ill-clad people can be viewed in public, even, in posh urban areas and where poverty is visible to the naked eye in its starkest form in this age of cyber revolution, sheer economic calculus has little value in practice. Modi surely will run into violent societal uprising if he cannot reinvent himself and pursue a reform agenda that does not upset the intricate social balance in any way.
There is no doubt whatsoever that Modi has been extremely adventurous till now and some of his radical decisions like doing away with the Planning Commission (PC) or making successfully running social security schemes irrelevant is nothing but suicidal. Take for example Modi’s ridiculous agenda to close down PC without ascertaining its far-reaching consequences. The PC, one must not forget, is spearheading the implementation of an integrated action plan to counter the menace of left-wing militancy (Naxalism) gaining ground in India’s rural hinterland. The principal objective of this initiative is to provide public infrastructure and services in the affected districts and its contiguous areas. PC-approved projects taken up in disturbed zones did play a major role in strengthening economic and social infrastructures.
In fact, several provincial governments (including those led by Modi’s BJP) have been pushing the central government in New Delhi consistently to increase the scope of this integrated plan for inclusion of several new districts, given the vulnerability of the poor in face of unrestrained left-wing violence. Modi’s predecessor was even amenable to the idea of modifying the terms of MNREGA to benefit the subaltern masses living in Naxal-affected regions. Under the integrated action plan for violence-affected districts, not only all families residing in such areas became eligible for state-subsidized housing, the land records were also regularized to stop land alienation among rural poor, especially the tribal people. Besides, a plan to provide service sector jobs to 300,000 unemployed youths under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission is also in disarray due to Modi’s myopic economic vision. One wonder, what does Modi gain from a dysfunctional social security system in India? Given his penchant for “hire-and-fire” and anti-people policies, a holistic social security mechanism can, at the least, offset the adverse side effects. Even the former rural development minister in Modi’s Cabinet Gopinath Munde had a word of praise for MNREGA, which he believed was the best mode for empowering India’s villages.
Perhaps, sooner than later, Modi will abide in the wisdom of making compromise in a developing nation like India. He can surmount the supposed deficit in common purpose and collective will only by taking the high and the low together. Not by recklessly wrecking India’s social security infrastructure to appease a few privileged.
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Email: sengupta.seema@ gmail.com
