The Wire
This article, published on February 13, 2025, was removed on February 14.
The piece was put in the review process after several readers alerted us to fabrications and errors and no satisfactory explanations were received from the author on the queries.
In an interview with Karan Thapar, Roy said they are, in fact, the top 10% of the country and if they are to be deemed middle class it would suggest that the remaining 90% are poor, which would be a sorry indictment of India.
Speaking on the unprecedented income tax cuts announced by the Finance Minister in the recent budget, Rathin Roy, a former member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council has said that of the 3.1 crore (31 million) beneficiaries, “no economist would call them middle class”.
In a 25-minute interview with Karan Thapar for The Wire, Roy said they are, in fact, the top 10% of the country and if they are to be deemed middle class it would suggest that the remaining 90% are poor, which would be a sorry indictment of India.
Roy also spoke about the impact of the income tax cuts on GDP growth and said it would be “nothing dramatic”.
He pointed out that the 10.1% nominal growth projection of the budget suggests that if inflation is even 4.5%, the growth next year could be around 5.5% – a percent lower than what is expected this year. He said it is likely that the income tax cuts would help ensure that growth next year, i.e. for 2025-26, remains at the same level as this year.
That, he adds, would rule out a dramatic improvement in growth.
Raising other important questions about the income tax cuts announced in the budget.
Not only did he question how the beneficiaries should be classified and the impact on GDP growth but he also raised questions about the cost of these income tax cuts and their justification.
Since 2011-12, NSAP has covered approximately 3 crore social security pensioners, yet its budgetary allocation has remained stagnant, effectively eroding in value over time. In 2014, the programme was allocated Rs 10,547 crore, but by 2025-26 the allocation has fallen to Rs 9,562 crore.
As expected, the budget for the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) – a crucial centrally-sponsored social security scheme that provides non-contributory pensions to the most marginalised populations including the elderly, widows, and persons with disabilities in the BPL category – has remained unchanged from the previous year.
The NSAP has become an antiquated relic, dusted off as elections approach but sidelined when real commitments are tested. Year after year, its funding remains frozen, failing to account for inflation or the growing number of beneficiaries.
How budget 2025 undermines NSAP
The recent Union budget once again undermined the NSAP by maintaining the budget at Rs 9,652 crore – same as the previous year. In real terms, the budget reduces to approximately Rs 9,200 crores.
To simply offset inflationary pressures, the budgetary outlay should have been raised to over Rs 10,000 crore.
As a share of the total budget outlay, allocation to NSAP has steadily declined from 0.58% in FY 2014-15 to 0.19% in FY 2025-26.
Budget Estimates and % Share of Budget Outlay for NSAP (2014-15 to 2025-26)
Since 2011-12, NSAP has covered approximately 3 crore social security pensioners, yet its budgetary allocation has remained stagnant, effectively eroding in value over time. In 2014, the programme was allocated Rs 10,547 crore, but by 2025-26 the allocation has fallen to Rs 9,562 crore.
To maintain the same purchasing power and level of support over 11 years, the allocation should have been increased to at least Rs 18,000 crore (assuming an average inflation rate of 5% per annum).
However, the abysmal budget allocations year after year are symptomatic of deeper structural issues within the programme itself. These issues stem from two reasons:
Gross underestimation of beneficiaries
Unlike most other welfare programmes where beneficiaries are determined based on the 2011 SECC data, the number of beneficiaries for all states/UTs under NSAP has been inexplicably capped/fixed based on the 2001 census and the 2004 poverty ratio determined by the erstwhile planning commission.
Also read: Debt, Policy, Spending: Budget 2025-26 at a Glance
As a result, since 2011-12, the number of beneficiaries under the three pension sub-schemes has been/fixed at 3 crores, comprising 2.21 crore elderly under Indira Gandhi National Old-Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS), 65.73 lakh widows under Indira Gandhi National Widows Pension Scheme (IGNWPS), and 10.9 lakh persons with disabilities under the Indira Gandhi National Disability Pension Scheme (IGNDPS).
The Economic Survey of India (ESI) 2024-25 for the first time acknowledges that of the 8.95 crore beneficiaries, nearly 6 crore additional beneficiaries are covered under pension schemes of different state governments, effectively admitting that the union government’s beneficiary list is outdated with massive underestimations.
That nearly 6 crore eligible individuals are excluded from the central support of NSAP schemes despite being rightfully entitled calls for the urgent need to conduct the decadal and caste census to provide accurate data on eligible beneficiaries.
The ESI states that “around nine crore beneficiaries (central NSAP plus additional state beneficiaries) are covered under the pension safety net of the country at an estimated annual expenditure of more than Rs 1 lakh crore.”
However, with less than Rs 10,000 crore allocation in the Budget, the state governments are paying close to 9 times more than the Union government.
According to the NSAP guidelines, “States are strongly urged to provide an additional amount at least an equivalent amount to the assistance provided by the Central Government so that the beneficiaries can get a decent level of assistance”.
Despite this, the union government’s contribution per person has remained constant at Rs 200 per month for the elderly and Rs 300 per month for widows and persons with disabilities since 2007 and 2012 respectively. Over the years in the absence of the union government stepping up, this has created an additional fiscal burden on states and has resulted in massive variations in pension amounts across the country, an issue highlighted in the CAG report.
‘A decent level of assistance’
Four percent of the government’s money is spent annually on the pensions of 64.88 lakh union government employees (including defence pensioners) which according to Budget 2025-26 is estimated to cost the exchequer close to Rs 2.77 lakh crore. Additionally, with the recent announcement of the 8th Pay Commission and the biannual revision of dearness relief, this will climb even higher.
However, for close to 3 crore individuals covered under the NSAP, the budget has remained at Rs 9,500 crore for more than a decade. This isn’t just about comparing numbers; it’s about the government’s priorities. Pension security is unquestioned for those at the top of the economic hierarchy, but what about those at the bottom?
The poor and marginalised are not passive recipients of welfare – they contribute to the economy in countless ways, through hard labour, informal work, and indirect taxes. If pension benefits are a recognition of service to the nation, then why are they denied the same dignity and security as Union government employees?
Also read: Budget 2025: A Step Forward, But for Whom?
At present, the Rs 2,400 to Rs 3,600 per annum pension received by beneficiaries under the NSAP – also often the sole source of income for many – falls significantly short of any reasonable definition of a ‘decent level of assistance’. The question then arises: what level of pension support would constitute a dignified standard of living, and what would be the fiscal implications for the exchequer?
The Pension Parishad, a campaign advocating for social security pensioners, has argued that an adequate pension should be set at 50% of the minimum wage, adjusted annually for inflation. Applying this principle to the 2019 Anoop Satpathy Report – which recommended a national minimum wage of Rs 375 per day – a reasonable pension would amount to Rs 4,875 per month per person.
If the Union government were to implement this recommendation and require state governments to match at least the central contribution, the total cost for 8.95 crore pensioners (ESI 2024 estimates) would stand at approximately Rs 2.61 lakh crore annually.
Alternatively, if we use the 2024-25 average wage rate under MGNREGA – set at Rs 279 per day across all States/ UT – a pension equivalent to 50% of this wage would amount to Rs 3,627 per month per individual which would cost the exchequer Rs 1.94 lakh crore annually.
Even based on the current coverage of 2.97 crore beneficiaries, a substantial increase in allocations is necessary to ensure a decent standard of living. Using the Satpathy estimates, this would cost the exchequer Rs 86,872 crore annually and applying the 2024-25 minimum wage per day rate would require Rs 64,633 crores a year.
While significantly higher than current allocations, these costs must be weighed against broader socio-economic benefits of improved social security, reducing poverty and addressing consequences of growing inequality. The income tax relief announced in the budget will cost the exchequer Rs 1 lakh crore and benefit only a small section of the population, a section which is relatively better off than those relying on small pension amounts.
A pension programme that ensures a decent level of assistance is not only morally justifiable but will have a greater impact on boosting consumption.
Given the pace of India’s ageing population and inadequacy of the existing scheme, a more deliberate attempt to restructure this social welfare programme is necessary. No matter how viksit the government claims to be, social security pensions seem like they will never see vikas.
The government must stop paying lip service and begin making real investments in the social security of its elderly and vulnerable populations. It’s time for the Union government to align its actions with its rhetoric and ensure that pensioners are given the dignity and financial security they deserve.
Asmi Sharma and Nancy Pathak are part of the Pension Parishad Campaign and the Financial Accountability Network
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that artificial intelligence has immense potential but cautioned against the risks of leaving AI ungoverned.
New Delhi: During the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, leaders from various countries called for action on artificial intelligence and reforms.
In a special address, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that in order to curb misinformation and cyber harassment, there is a need for reform of social media governance, reported the Press Trust of India.
Sanchez urged for stronger enforcement of the Digital Services Act and expanded powers for the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned about two global threats – the unchecked expression of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis. He said that these threats pose unprecedented risks to humanity and demand immediate, unified action from the governments and the private sector.
Guterres said that artificial intelligence has immense potential but cautioned against the risks of leaving AI ungoverned. He said there is a need for international collaboration, pointing to the Global Digital Compact adopted at the United Nations as a roadmap for harnessing digital technology responsibly.
The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo announced the creation of the world’s largest tropical forest reserve, which will protect over 550,000 sq km of forest.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Affairs Minister Varsen Aghabekian expressed cautious optimism after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
We have to ensure that the aid is reaching the people,” said Aghabekian about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The court directed Assam chief secretary to appear via video-conferencing on the next date of hearing to explain the non-compliance. The bench expressed displeasure over the state government’s handling of the matter.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday (January 22) has slammed the Assam government for its “defective” affidavit, which failed to provide reasons for detaining 270 foreigners at the Matia transit camp, news agency PTI reported.
On December 9, the court had granted the state government six weeks to file the affidavit, expecting details on the detention and deportation process. However, the affidavit lacked justification for detaining the foreigners and didn’t outline steps taken for their deportation. “This is gross violation of orders of this court,” the bench, comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, was quoted as saying by PTI.
The court directed Assam chief secretary Ravi Kota to appear via video-conferencing on the next date of hearing to explain the non-compliance. The bench expressed displeasure over the state government’s handling of the matter.
Also read: SC Seeks Response From Centre, Assam Govt on Deportation of 211 Foreign Nationals
The Assam government counsel argued that the detained individuals were declared foreigners by the foreigners tribunals, and the deportation process takes place through the Union government. However, the court questioned why detentions continued without initiating the deportation process.
The court also criticised the state government’s claim that the affidavit was confidential, containing sensitive information such as the addresses of foreigners.
“Assam counsel states that affidavit filed should be kept in sealed envelope, as contents thereof are confidential. Though we are directing that it be kept in sealed envelope, prima facie we disagree with the counsel that there is something confidential about the contents,” the bench was quoted as saying by PTI.
This development comes after the Supreme Court directed the Assam State Legal Services Authority to conduct surprise visits at the Matia transit camp to assess the facility’s hygiene and food quality. The court had also ordered the Union government to take immediate steps for deporting 17 foreigners detained at the Matia transit camp, prioritising those who had spent over two years in the detention centre.
The Supreme Court bench was hearing a petition related to the deportation of individuals declared foreigners and the living conditions at the detention centers in Assam. Additionally, the petition sought a court order restraining the Assam government from detaining anyone declared a foreigner by the tribunal unless it could demonstrate a viable plan for their imminent deportation.
The commission pointed out that in the last ten years, while corporate taxes and GDP receipts have grown by 2.3 times, income taxes have surged by 4.5 times affecting common people more than big businesses.
New Delhi: Ahead of the Union Budget 2025, a few concerned citizens have demanded that the government rationalise India’s taxation system so as to ensure the social security of all people and not just of the corporate moguls.
In a press release, the People’s Commission on Public Sector and Public Services raised concerns that the existing tax structure is “over-reliant on indirect taxes, grossly lop-sided, regressive and asymmetrically oriented in favour of big businesses”.
The release is undersigned by a group of eminent academics, jurists, erstwhile administrators, trade unionists and social activists including former Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac; E.A.S. Sarma, former secretary in the ministry of power and economic affairs; Supreme Court advocate Indira Jaising; senior journalist V. Sridhar, among others.
Also read: Will the Modi Govt Fix the Economy With the Union Budget 2025?
In the guise of promoting an “investment-conducive environment”, the release stated, the central and state governments have been giving tax sops and subsidies, making the tax structure heavily biased in favour of these businesses.
The release pointed out that in the last ten years, in absolute terms, while corporate taxes and GDP receipts have grown by only 2.3 times – from Rs 4.28 lakh crore to Rs 10.2 lakh crore and Rs 4.42 lakh crore in 2017-18 to Rs 10.6 lakh crore, respectively – income taxes have surged by 4.5 times, from Rs 2.5 lakh crore to Rs 11.8 lakh crore in the Budget Estimates (BE) for 2024-25.
Moreover, the indirect taxes in the form of GST (goods and services tax) paid by every individual, including the poor, has grown by 2.56% between 2017-18 and 2023-24 – from 7.9 crores to 20.18 crores, it stated.
“So we are taxing the common man more and enriching the richest. This has to be reversed,” it said.
The commission also highlighted the discrepancies in the percentage contribution to gross tax revenue (GTR), in which the government has recently attempted to reduce the proportion of corporate taxes and increase income taxes.
Also read: Can Union Budget 2025 Save India’s Shrinking Middle Class?
This, the release stated, has resulted in an increase in income inequities and concentration of wealth, in violation of Articles 38(2) and 39(c) [Directive Principles] of the Constitution. “Such acute concentration of wealth… in the hands of a few oligarchs has allowed the latter to distort markets and manipulate prices to their advantage, at the cost of the people,” it stated.
Among other fiscal reforms, the commission has suggested the privatisation of central public sector enterprises and monetisation of their assets and provide “a transparent, rule-based, stable business environment” instead of giving subsidies to profit earning private companies.
On social security measures, the commission has raised concerns that in recent times, the government has “progressively reduced budgetary allocations for food security, rural employment, welfare of SCs/STs etc., ignoring its constitutional obligations”.
If all political parties discuss and debate these issues, the commission expressed, it could bring pressure on the ruling political executive to adopt the measures and incorporate appropriate provisions in the upcoming budget.
The Union budget is set to be presented before the parliament by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1, 2025, amid growing concerns of rising inequality and stagnant income and opportunities, causing a subpar performance among Indian middle class.
Among other concerns, this year, all eyes will remain on what measures the government introduces to curb the rising household debt and unemployment, while also addressing the lopsided growth of the country.
The Cholas, with sprawling empires, were the perfect emblems of necessary political concepts.
The following is an excerpt from Lords of Earth and Sea by Anirudh Kanisetti, published on January 18, 2025 by Juggernaut Books.
Kaveri’s water gushed through mud canals, lapped at the walls of tanks. For century after century, it murmured the same humdrum story. On its banks, Tamil-speaking villagers lived out their lives. Their lands were owned by peasant clans in whose mud-and-thatch homes livestock bleated. Occasionally, a king showed up from another region and made gifts at a village’s little temple but they were mostly left alone. Sometimes they squabbled over water or herds. But otherwise, for centuries, little disturbed the ancient, uniquely self-governing rhythm of the Kaveri floodplain.
‘Lords of Earth and Sea’, Anirudh Kanisetti, Juggernaut, 2024.
But then something changed. More than a thousand years ago, around 850 CE, a peasant clan arose in the Kaveri floodplain, seemingly out of nowhere. First, they conquered villages. Then they raised armies, tens of thousands strong, and marched them up the Kaveri to conquer the warlike Deccan highlands. Merchant corporations kowtowed to them, following their conquests to bring these kings tribute of camphor and pearl, and to transport their armies across oceans. Their loyalists harnessed the great, lazy sway of the Kaveri, taming its delta, studding it with settlers. Their administrators funnelled hundreds of tonnes of granite, thousands of tonnes of golden rice into enormous new imperial temples. Glorious in plaster, paint, tile and gilding, two of these temples in particular stood out. These colossi were the tallest freestanding structures on Earth, excepting the Pyramids.
Both these temples – blazing with light from dozens of bronze idols, fragrant with offerings of sheep’s ghee and heaps of flowers – bore the name of this clan that arose from nowhere to conquer the world. Today we call them the Brihadishvara temples, the temples of the Great Lord Shiva. In their own time, they were called the temples of the Kings-of-Kings, men whose edicts, we are told, adorned the diadems of crowds of princes. These were the men of the imperial Chola dynasty – an unexpected superpower that changed the history of the planet.
The Cholas were unexpected for two reasons. For most of Indian history, the subcontinent has been dominated by either one of two great geopolitical regions: the Gangetic Plains, with its sprawling Maurya, Gupta, Tughlaq and Mughal empires, or the Deccan Plateau, with its warlike Satavahana, Rashtrakuta and Maratha empires.
Also read: Lessons from the Chozha Dynasty for Our Democracy in Decay
When the Cholas emerged onto the scene in the ninth century CE, the Rashtrakuta lords of the Deccan were acknowledged, even by foreign rulers like the Arabs, to be the subcontinent’s dominant rulers. The Cholas changed all that. They, for the first time, united the vast area of the Tamil and Telugu coasts, creating a Tamil-speaking empire that lasted nearly three hundred years – as long as the Mughal empire that came much later in North India. Through a series of spectacular campaigns, the Cholas not only humbled the Deccan Plateau but also raided as far north as Bengal and the river Ganga, symbolically subordinating all of South Asia to their imperial sceptre: the tiger-surmounted sengol you see on this book’s cover. It was the first and only time that a Tamil-speaking coastal polity lorded it over other proud, distinct regions of India.
Chola power was not contained to the boundaries of present-day India, either. They had a long-lasting outpost in Sri Lanka, and successfully raided the shores of the Malay peninsula, an expedition with no precedent in the Indian Ocean. They sent shockwaves all the way to East Asia. ‘The crown of the [Chola] ruler,’ wrote an eleventh century Chinese bureaucrat, ‘is decorated with luminous pearls and rare precious stones…He is often at war with various kingdoms of Western Heaven [India]. The kingdom has sixty thousand war elephants…There are almost 10,000 female servants, 3,000 of whom alternate everyday to serve at the court.’ Not bad for a family of humble origins.
There was another way in which Chola power was unexpected. They ruled the Kaveri floodplain, a region that had been settled by cultivators from the early centuries CE. For much of its existence, agrarian life there had little to do with kings or kingdoms. Divided up into a patchwork of 500 nadus, literally ‘countries’, villages in the Kaveri floodplain managed their affairs – irrigation, harvests, markets and tax revenues – autonomously, mostly through assemblies of kin. In the vast landscape of medieval India, this was pretty much the last place one would expect to see a powerful kingdom.
In global history, it is often the most fragmented regions that give rise to the grandest of polities. Greece, under Alexander the Great. Mongolia, under Genghis Khan. And the Tamil land, under the Cholas.
The Chola state was greatly feared and admired by its contemporaries. In the last century of the empire, and for two hundred years after, in Kongu, the hilly region between Kerala and Tamil Nadu; in Nellore and the Krishna-Godavari Delta in Andhra Pradesh, local dynasties claimed Chola names and titles and attempted to fashion themselves as new Cholas. As late as the sixteenth century, Malay kings were inventing family histories claiming descent from a near-mythical ‘Raja Chulan’ – a warped memory, perhaps, of the conqueror Rajendra Chola.
Yet, by the time the British established the Madras Presidency in the seventeenth century, historical memories of the Cholas had faded into South Asia’s endless tapestry of legend and myth. The names Rajaraja and Rajendra had been forgotten. The great imperial temples stood empty: communities only maintained their own local shrines. According to the distinguished Tamil historian, A.R. Venkatachalapathy, when the first Tamil steamship companies were established in the early twentieth century, no memory remained of the Cholas’ swashbuckling oceangoing expeditions.
Also read: Police Book Director Pa Ranjith for Saying Chola King’s Rule Oppressed Dalits
This changed rapidly due to two movements: the Indian freedom struggle and, soon after, Dravidian nationalism. From the 1930s onwards, the great historian, K.A. Nilakantha Sastri, founder of South Indian historical studies, pored through thousands of Chola inscriptions and compiled a magisterial account of the dynasty. Sastri found in the Cholas, proud, warlike and confident rulers that seemed to express the highest political ideals of his time: constitutional monarchy coupled with local self-government.
Soon after, freedom fighter and author, Kalki R. Krishnamurthy, wrote the explosively successful Ponniyin Selvan, a fictionalised account of the rise of Rajaraja Chola, published in a monthly periodical. Krishnamurthy, according to his granddaughter and translator, Gowri Ramnarayan, intended for his fictional Chola clan to embody the personalities of various nationalist figures, in order to promote a sense of pride in both Tamil and Indian identity. ‘The Mahatma’s nobility, Nehru’s charisma, Patel’s steel, Rajaji’s integrity, and the compassion of Buddha and Ashoka.’
But in the decades after, as India’s federal structure came to favour Gangetic histories and the Hindi language, the new state of Tamil Nadu found a need for an alternative narrative: a narrative of Tamil glory, of a distinct, Tamil-led Dravidian identity. And the Cholas, with a sprawling empire, were the perfect emblems of this concept, inspiring blockbuster films such as Raja Raja Cholan (1973). In more recent decades, they have been claimed as Hindu nationalist icons, with a sengol, a Tamil royal sceptre, enshrined in India’s new Parliament building in 2023. And so the Cholas continue to ride history’s waves – forgotten once, then rediscovered and reimagined again.
Anirudh Kanisetti won the Sahitya Akademi’s Yuva Puraskar for his book Lords of the Deccan: Southern India From Chalukyas To Cholas in 2023.
Hers was the kind of hand that you could hold to see you through your endeavours.
The initial post-Independence years in India were fibrillating.
One of the most outstanding stories was how India recovered from colonisation. It was as if the decades of colonisation were incubating a revolution of our cultural and intellectual strength. While our political leaders were drawing power and ideas from our heritage, the human hand, as the crucial factor of production, began to emerge as a power.
There was of course Gandhi and the charkha, but alongside dozens of others working to promote handmade utilitarian products.
On a parallel track, textile mills were burgeoning.
The competition for market space between the hand and machine was growing. Into this space, John Bissell, Bim’s husband, thrust Fabindia – contemporary goods made with looms and other hand driven products – into the market successfully.
While Bim was already an almost iconic figure in Delhi circles, as social secretary to US Ambassadors like John Galbraith, partnering with John Bissell gave her the social strength she needed for spreading her wings across many territories. She was the “go to” person for any one seeking to understand India and “belong”. She enabled countless endeavours by a most diverse set of persons to engage with India.
For me, she was akin to a mother’s home. She and John smothered us with care and affection. They gave my husband and myself support in the early years of our marriage, and later nurtured me through the thorny bushes of setting up a centre giving visibility to women’s contribution to the Indian economy.
Hers was the kind of hand that you could hold to see you through your endeavours. She was a well of unbound generosity. She helped to found many organisations from the back, never seeking to project herself. Her home, her table, her connections were available to all of us, and never ending.
Bim was an institution.
While my family, husband, sons and I felt we were a part of her family, there were dozens of others who felt the same.
Indomitable Bim, we will truly miss you. You were a kind of magnet. I wish you peace and rest after a restless journey.
Devaki Jain is a noted economist. She is a recipient of the Padma Bhushan.
As a testament to the political environment of the time, then prime minister, the late Manmohan Singh, gave the people reassurances that the country was not headed for a 1991-style balance of payments crisis.
New Delhi: In a headline that has been recurring for the past year, the rupee opened at a record low of 86.12 against the US dollar on January 13.
Among factors to blame are higher crude oil prices, outflows from foreign investors and the RBI letting the rupee continue its downward slide.
The “86” mark has been called psychologically significant by news media. It comes amidst a general lack of confidence in the Indian economy.
Twelve years ago, in 2013, the rupee had fallen to levels which had been then considered its lifetime low. Headlines focused on the Indian currency hitting a “record low of sub Rs 64-level against the US dollar” and the quick slide of almost 29% in a few months.
As a testament to the political environment of the time, then prime minister, the late Manmohan Singh, gave the people reassurances that the country was not headed for a 1991-style balance of payments crisis.
Criticism was acknowledged (and allowed) and widespread, especially on mainstream media. The Times of India ran the following cartoon on August 27, 2013.
A cartoon on Times of India, on August 27, 2013.
Narendra Modi who had then been a year from prime ministership, had written on X, then called Twitter: “There is a comp[etition] between Congress and the rupee. Who will fall lower, that is the competition.”
“The rupee joke is now on PM Modi,” The Telegraph has written in 2025, with the economy in dire straits and the prime minister entirely silent on it.
ABP News ran a bulletin which appears meaningful now: “Rupee falls to record low: Narendra Modi blames government.”
On January 11, 2025, a popular commentator shared an older speech by Modi’s on X, in which the then Gujarat chief minister blames the ‘Delhi’ – or Union – government for its silence on the economy.
“Fall has been so normalised, it’s not even news anymore,” the commentator, @Nher_who, writes.
For the first time in history Rupee has crossed 86 against a dollar and this man has been our PM for 11 years.
Media has forgotten the issue.
Celebrities have forgotten their jokes.
Fall has been so normalised, it’s not even a news anymore. pic.twitter.com/BqEZcM1uqL— Nehr_who? (@Nher_who) January 11, 2025
Modi’s were not the only words that have aged badly.
“Rupee at 60. It is mayhem. Close to an economic crisis. But well, the government is silent,” wrote Chetan Bhagat, then at the height of his popularity as a writer. Bhagat has recently been mildly critical of the various popcorn tax slabs that the Goods and Services Tax regime has introduced.
The one person on the receiving end of criticism regarding tax slabs, current finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, wrote a tweet in September 2013 that closely mirrors the predicament she finds most Indians in now:
“Falling rupee adding to burden. Pay more but still fuel on ration. Govt responsible for creating sense of panic. Can govt get away..,” she wrote.
Sitharaman and the rest of the Modi government’s famous silences on almost all issues contrasts with the tone taken by government representatives in 2013. The New York Times said in 2013 of the then finance minister:
“Officials like Finance Minister P. Chidambaram have been assuring the public and investors that the drop in the currency is a temporary phenomenon that has also been witnessed in other countries and that they are working at stabilizing the rupee by addressing issues that affect the inflow of capital.”
Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar wrote on Twitter, “It is refreshing to know that the rupee will get stronger at Rs.40/- per dollar if Modi comes to power.” The rupee, as noted above, has crossed 86 against the dollar in the 11 years that Modi has been in power. Undeterred, Ravi Shankar largely posts glowing reviews of the Modi government’s policies now; one of his latest was on ‘One Nation, One Election’.
Entertainment website ScoopWhoop collated a list of “celebrities” – the article mentioned actors and news personalities – who had then spoken out against the falling rupee. This is a far cry from now, when most leading celebrities are either silent on matters seen as important or seen in direct dalliance with Modi.
“New word added to English dictionary : RUPEED ( ru – pee – d ) , Verb MEANING : move downward,” wrote actor Amitabh Bachchan.
“The only way the Rupee can save itself is by tying a rakhi to the Dollar and saying “meri raksha karna,” posted Juhi Chawla, the actor.
Vivek Agnihotri, who has since made films like The Kashmir Files, wrote, “May ur happiness increase like Petrol Price,May ur sorrow fall like Indian Rupee n May ur joy fill your heart like corruption in India.”
Amidst the anachronistic messages from 2013 was a clear note that Modi’s inevitable arrival will solve the situation at hand.
“There is growing anxiety about the future, but India’s middle class may not have lost faith yet in the possibility of economic regeneration,” The Guardian had said.
Within 24 hours of Dr Manmohan Singh’s funeral, the BJP-Congress verbal fisticuffs had become a cheap slugfest. Shouldn’t the Congress showcase him with the pomp it could have?
In 2024, 64 democracies went to general elections; the future of approximately 49% of the world’s population was to be decided.
Two billion voters went to the electronic voting machine (EVM) or the ballot box. The overall takeaway was that a tsunami of change occurred.
Many saw incumbent governments being contemptuously toppled by disenchanted voters. Americans probably experienced the most unexpected seismic shock; the return of the obstreperous and defiant Donald Trump in what has been correctly called the greatest political comeback in US political history.
A feckless Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidency was walloped in the battleground swing states that turned comprehensively red. The UK had seen cocky Conservatives waste a huge mandate won by the maverick Boris Johnson, eventually culminating in a historic drubbing at the hands of Keir Starmer-led Labour.
Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor who had inherited the difficult mantle of leadership from the European wonder Angela Merkel, faces a snap re-election bid, as his brittle coalition has caved in.
Jair Bolsonaro was ousted in Brazil in 2022.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, saw a hung parliament and his own party relegated to the periphery.
Italy, Portugal and Netherlands saw the rise of far right-wing parties. Sri Lanka and Bhutan in our neighbourhood saw an outpouring of demand for a new leader, while Bangladesh stunned the world in a student-led overthrow.
Quintessentially, 2024 was a referendum for change. But the one singular exception to the perennial topsy-turvy world of political change was India. It has remained sequestered from the global trend of anti-incumbency, and has seen, in fact, a steadfast escalation in the popularity of its prime minister Narendra Modi. The Big Media cheerleaders credit it to his apparent Teflon texture. It appears that the world’s largest democracy is living in a hallucinatory bubble, unruffled by poor governance, corruption allegations, economic stasis and democratic de-consolidation.
Is there a rational argument that justifies Narendra Modi-led BJP’s impregnable domination of Indian politics?
While I may have a partisan viewpoint, can it be denied that India has seen an anaemic GDP growth rate (its last quarter growth is 5.4%) leading to worsening income inequality, escalating poverty, pauperisation of the middle-class, unending farmer protests, and rampant joblessness?
Truth be said, the hype over government expenditure on infrastructure notwithstanding, Modi has been a mammoth failure in reigniting our animal spirits, post-pandemic. India’s share in manufacturing output as a percentage of GDP has in fact diminished; so much for those who were gloating over a China+1 business miracle for India.
Inflation has further eroded purchasing power of impoverished millions surviving on free foodgrains (57% of Indians). The lesser we talk about corruption, crony capitalism, hate-politics and the death of constitutional institutions, the better, as they are of encyclopaedic stock.
And yet, how does Modi keep winning elections, almost with insouciant ease? It has only one entity to thank for this generous benediction from the gods: the Indian National Congress party.
In any political battlefield amongst rival coalitions, the principal protagonist of the alliance must do the heavy lifting. The Congress, which willy-nilly because of its pan-Indian presence leads the INDIA alliance, has fallen woefully short. It is true that there is an absence of level playing field. The mainstream media is servile to Modi, and every democratic institution of governance appears visibly sterile.
The Election Commission seems to be a pliant administrator following diktats with obedience. Finally, the BJP is a disproportionately cash-rich relative to its arch foes. And yet, despite these headwinds, the Congress should have by now learnt how to defeat the BJP’s mammoth election machinery based on the NDA’s shoddy performance alone.
The fact is that it has not.
It has been 10 years and counting. The double-whammy of the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections have given the BJP a booster shot.
What explains this self-destructive propensity, seemingly an incurable affliction?
There are many reasons, but in this piece, let me dwell on just one of them. It does not know how to set the narrative. Its political communication, the crux of narrative-setting, is still a work-in-progress. It is a party that has become mealy-mouthed, paranoid of belling the cat, lacking tactical ploys and the insatiable hunger of a serious competitor. It prefers the innocuous option of posting on social media to plain simple hard work. It has become a political couch potato. It has forgotten the basics.
Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi (L), Rahul Gandhi (3-L) campaigning in Haryana along with Bhupinder Hooda (3-R) and Kumari Selja (2-L) and others. Photo: X/@RahulGandhi
The example of the late prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s passing away corroborates my hypothesis. Singh did not just change India’s economic growth trajectory, he metamorphosed India into a serious contender in the global sweepstakes. From the 1991 economic liberalisation, the high-risk gamble on the civil nuclear deal, and landmark transformative legislations such as Right to Information Act, MNREGA, Right to Education, Food Security Act, FDI in multi-brand retail and so on. Singh was embarking on an outstanding mission of empowerment of the ordinary Indian.
He was a brilliant visionary, thus his digital delivery of welfare subsidies took the form of Aadhaar and the Direct Benefits Transfer, and preparing the architecture of the biggest tax reform, the GST. The fact that Singh brought about these extraordinary ameliorations despite running a coalition government (comprising restless and uneasy partners), a belligerent opposition creating a parliamentary paralysis, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-aided agitation led by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal getting 24×7 relentless media space, and the world facing the Great Recession (the worst since 1931) on account of the US mortgage crisis, makes him easily the best Indian prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru, who built modern India from the ravages of the bloody partition and an economically broke country, stripped off its assets by the British.
Also read: MGNREGA, RTI to Lokpal and LARR Act: Manmohan Singh’s Tenure Saw Many Legislative Milestones
With a large Gen Z and millennial population unaware of that period of India’s fascinating history (many have been brainwashed by BJP’s WhatsApp University), the Congress had a fabulous opportunity to rekindle the magic of its best years in recent times. After all, many economists call 2004-2014 the “golden period of economic growth” as India accomplished a nearly 8% GDP growth over 10 years, and lifted 270 million out of poverty concomitantly, establishing Singh’s inclusive, “reforms with a human face” model.
The UPA, in my opinion, was as good an example of compassionate capitalism, as any. But an unsurprisingly complacent, ill-organised, and politically dorky Congress once again blew apart a great opportunity to celebrate Singh’s greatness, and reclaim its own success story. Instead, it allowed the BJP the bandwidth to link Singh with alleged “scams”, that were never proven. It was outrageous torpor by the Congress. With it, the June 2024 advantage was well and truly gone.
Ideally, the entire senior leadership, including the leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi should have given short 15–20-minute interviews to several TV channels, English and Hindi, and to several YouTubers, besides addressing press conferences in a few cities on Singh’s standout legacy, including the unfair allegations against him by the BJP.
Senior leaders like P. Chidambaram, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, and Jairam Ramesh should have been part of a high-powered communications team reaching out to the media and public at large across the country. Instead, the Congress, chose to publish full-page ads (costing them an astronomical bomb, I am sure) with bullet points. It forgot to mention RTI and MNREGS in them.
A screengrab from a video released by Congress on Singh.
If the leading opposition party which has governed India for 54 out of 77 years has forgotten elementary narrative-setting, it should stop being petulant. Politics is about knowing how to up the performative ante at every conceivable turn. Blaming Modi and BJP is beginning to sound like a boring bromide. They are ruthless, immoral and unethical, no doubt, but has Modi stopped the Congress from getting its house in order?
Currently, there are no manifestations of the grand old party’s moment of epiphany.
It seems blithely happy with its garden-variety politics, which puts India’s democratic foundations in big danger. Within 24 hours of Manmohan Singh’s funeral, the BJP-Congress verbal fisticuffs had become a cheap slugfest: the Congress was engaged in a puerile kerfuffle about the positioning of TV cameras on that day that showed Modi instead of Singh’s family. True maybe, but they had missed the woods for the trees. A chance to showboat Dr Singh and the Congress was lost. Overnight, the Delhi elections became the new headline, while the nation was still officially mourning the departed prime minister.
This is the first in a two-part series on the Congress’s prospects.
Sanjay Jha is an author and former national spokesperson for the Congress.
