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Perhaps because, when judged by his own promises, Modi\u2019s term has been a failure. The government may claim that India\u2019s economy is growing faster than it ever has, but there isn\u2019t exactly a lot of optimism on the ground. Worst of all, his political foot-soldiers, the under-employed young men who fill India\u2019s northern states, haven\u2019t seen their lives change appreciably.<\/p>\n
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Just a couple of days before the budget, India got convincing proof of this failure. The government had long argued that unemployment wasn\u2019t a problem.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There wasn\u2019t any data in the public domain to settle the question one way or another. But, it turned out that India\u2019s most comprehensive jobs survey had indeed been completed and signed off on by the country\u2019s highest statistical body.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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After the government tried to bury the data, the statisticians resigned \u2014 and the data leaked anyway, revealing that unemployment was at a 45-year high. It was worst for young people: The unemployment rate for rural males between 15 and 29 soared from 5 per cent in 2011-12 to 17.4 per cent in 2017-18.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Rather than curing India\u2019s jobs problem, Modi\u2019s government had made it worse than ever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That\u2019s why the new giveaways were both necessary and revealing. Modi\u2019s promise of a new political economy, one oriented around the private sector, productivity and growth was illusory.<\/p>\n
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Now India is faced with the choice of one giant welfare scheme or another in this year\u2019s elections \u2014 alongside a treasury that will struggle to finance politicians\u2019 demands. This is a familiar position for India\u2019s voters, but one that many of us had hoped we had left behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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And the worst part, perhaps, is that Modi\u2019s giveaways show that he\u2019s learned nothing from his mistakes. The reason farmers need support is that there are so many of them that landholdings are too small and they struggle to make a living.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The reason that there are so many of them is that there are no other places to work. If you want India\u2019s farmers to prosper, you need to focus on creating a more vibrant industrial sector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But, in the budget, there was little talk of manufacturing. Modi\u2019s government began its tenure promising to reduce corporate taxation to Southeast Asian levels so as to render Indian industry competitive globally. There wasn\u2019t a peep about that in this last budget.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Modi seems to have given up on his plan to transform India.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Nor was there anything to help India\u2019s army of unemployed. But why should there be? The government had, after all, just spent months trying to cover up their existence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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