Bombay to Gorakpur. 1665 kilometres. Migrant labour walk all the way under a searing sun on steaming hot road. Manik and wife Sita make the journey carrying two children aged four and one. Four hundred kilometres into the journey the food they carry gets exhausted. They walk on hungry stomach. A kindly woman gives them a morsel of roti each. They eat it and keep walking. They sleep that night on the roadside on empty stomachs. Next morning, they continue walking on empty stomachs. By noon they wither. They get energised when the news of Modi’s 20-crore package reach their ears. They rise to their feet and continue walking, carrying bawling hungry children. At night, a truck runs over them as they are sleeping on the roadside, bringing a gruesome end to the human ordeal of a family of four.

At least as far as Manik’s family is concerned, these words of Sonia Gandhi were true to the letter: “Modi’s 20-lakh Corona package was a cruel joke on the country.” You don’t need to be a Nobel Laureate in economics to understand that Manik’s family needed the wherewithal to hold on to dear life before putting into practice Modi’s grand scheme of getting rich by using bank loans. And yet, at least four Nobel Laureates and many an economic expert have argued that Modi should immediately put money into the hands of the poor if he is truly interested in navigating the nation out of the deep crises caused by Corona.

The cruelty of the package lies in (1) taking the nation through Nirmala Sitaraman’s five-day media extravaganza, which ended as a terribly disappointing damp squib for those who had got hooked to it expecting some immediate financial help, (2) trying to fool the people by packaging 2-lakh crore assistance in a huge gilded 20-lakh crore box, (3) refusing to acknowledge that scared and hungry millions were walking on India’s roads to be able to at least die in the place of their birth, and above all (4) using the nation’s Corona agony to push Modi’s larger agenda of no-holds-barred economic liberalisation. That shouldn’t be too surprising about a ruling party that is using the Corona crisis to topple opposition ruled state governments.

Helping suffering Indians is the least of Modi’s concerns. It didn’t require much prodding for him to dole out 1.70 lakh crores in cash to corporates as economic stimulant a few months back, but he stubbornly resists the clamour for providing at least that much as life saving succour to the nation’s Corona hit poor. Modi is taking a leaf out of his chump Trump, for whom the elderly, black Americans and Asian origin Americans are expendable for the ultimate aim of quick economic recovery. A man who captured the imagination of the poor by falsely claiming to be a tea vendor has forgotten them after getting elected in a big way with their votes!

Modi’s chief economic adviser Krishnmurthy Subramanyam had this to say about the Corona Package: “The package has to be seen in the light of the new vision that has been begun by the honourable Prime Minister. In some sense there is an attempt to try and construct some equivalent to that (which) President Roosevelt came up with during the great depression. Not only were there measures in terms of monetary, fiscal, liquidity etc., but more importantly there were a bunch of reforms as well. And reforms with the vision of a self reliant India.” He further explains that for both supply and demand side recovery, infusion of liquidity is of foremost importance.

Overly obsessed with the American model, the CEC has overlooked two important points. 1. Whereas Roosevelt only had to revive an already existing manufacturing base, India has to create one to achieve self-reliance – a very huge task, and 2. Our manufacturing sector, especially the micro, small, and medium scale sectors, are hit more by the shortage of affordable man power after large scale loss of migrant labour than by liquidity crunch. Also, the banks are already flush with money, but there are few takers for loans. Nobody will risk taking more loans in the midst of all round economic insecurity.

For widening the manufacturing base in a big way, we need to attract foreign investment. But the government has forestalled that by causing social disarray, relentlessly pursuing policies that have divided the nation. Getting favourable credit ratings by controlling the fiscal deficit (the foremost consideration behind the government not providing cash relief to the poor) alone will not attract investment. Investors give much greater weight to social harmony existing in a country. This lockdown induced calm may not last for long.

Ushering in the Electronics Revolution, Rajiv Gandhi said: “Electronics is like the nervous system of a nation. And, as the nation evolves, the nervous system must evolve with it… We need a similar network in our country if India is to progress, if we are to keep up with the world. We missed one bus with the industrial revolution. A sudden boost in muscle power, and we were not able to catch up for three hundred years. Maybe, we didn’t jump on the second bus on time, and that is the electronic revolution or the computer revolution. And now we may have to run behind that bus and catch up to it and jump on to it. I think we are capable of doing this.” That was true vision. A homegrown vision. A vision that was largely responsible for the economic growth we enjoyed since he doggedly put it into practice. Modi’s America inspired 20-lakh crore package is hardly a match for it. It would be a miracle if it achieved its intended goal any time soon, if ever at all.