Editorials

UPA’s Budget 2010-11: Neo-Liberalism Unlimited

When the Economic Survey 2009-10 has admitted that the agriculture has performed very poorly with 0.2% decline in agricultural output and when the inflation has reached double digits with retail prices of cereals and all essential commodities and food expenses almost doubled, the finance minister has come out with a budget for 2010-11 which only promotes the ‘entrepreneurial energy’ of the top 5-10%, only serves the MNCs and Corporate giants and which only encourages the consumerist tendencies of the affluent middle class, a miniscule segment of the society. In addition to continuous increases in the prices of petroleum products the central excise duty on them is again hiked. More and more indirect taxes are imposed. The public sector shares worth Rs. 25,000 crores are sold. All subsidies to the poorer sections are further cut. While the fabulous amounts spent to help the Corporate houses ‘to perform well’ in spite of global crisis shall be continued, no steps are announced to bring down the prices of essential commodities. It is nothing but neo-liberalism unlimited, unleashed to satisfy the greedy rich and to devastate the vast masses.
When the global financial crisis started hitting India, the UPA government had overthrown fiscal orthodoxy and the corporate houses were provided fabulous stimulus. But under Fiscal Responsibility and Responsibility Management Act all investments and expenditures in the social sector are drastically cut. As the central government has concentrated more and more financial powers in its hands violating whatever federal principles exist in the Constitution, the state governments are further starved of funds forcing the cutting down of expenditures for health-care, education, housing and rural development. While the poor are getting increasingly deprived of public distribution system, housing, employment and even primary education, the retail sector is also opened to Corporates and MNCs, the real estate lobby is allowed full domination, health-care is privatised further and even the foreign universities are allowed to enter in a big way in this budget. It will make the higher education more elitist. It will speed up the commercialisation of every social sector including the education.
In US and other imperialist countries the agri-businesses is promoted through huge government subsidies. But this budget has further cut the measly subsidies to the marginal farmers. Whatever helps are provided in this sector are snatched away by the elite classes as is evident in Corporate-MNC farming and they are investing huge sums to build storage facilities including cold storages for promoting their hoarding and black marketing. The finance minister has openly helped them by leasing out the FCI godowns to them, many of which are empty due to government cutting down the procurement of cereals. Finance for setting up godowns and cold storage are counted as agricultural credit to them, under priority sector lending. Thus this budget further strengthens Corporate and MNC hegemony in the agriculture, storage and retail business sectors.
As the food prices are soaring up the government could utilise the more than 27 million tonnes food grains in government stock to market through the PDS. But the budget refuses to do it. At the same time the increase in the expenditures for social sector and rural developments outlays is only 6.6%, which means a real absolute decline due to spiralling inflation. The Corporate-MNC lobby was clamouring for a free reign for finance, a lax monetary policy, easy liquidity, low interest, expanded credit and cut in personal taxes to legitimise the new regime of accumulation and to promote credit-financed housing, consumption and investment boom. In his Thatcherist avatar Pranab Mukherjee has given much more than they asked for. At the same time he has made a direct attack on the income of the bottom half of the population through hike in fuel prices and indirect taxes, reduction in food subsidy and through the neglect of agricultural schemes benefitting the poorer sections.
Fully aware of the fact that a most dangerous, reactionary consensus has developed among all big and small, national and regional ruling class parties and the social democratic CPI(M)-led Left Front in direct or indirect support of the neo-liberal policies which are intensifying the neo-colonial slavery, that none of these parties are going to make the comprador policies of the UPA government a major issue in any of the forth coming state assembly elections, and that the next Lok Sabha elections are comfortably away, that is, they are going to take place only after four years, the Congress-led UPA government has dared to unleash the neo-liberal policies at an unprecedentedly frantic speed. It is an outright effort to serve the elite classes by fleecing the vast majority. There is not a single aspect of this budget which deserves even a critical support. It is outrightly reactionary. What is called for is the outright rejection of this reactionary budget and uncompromising struggle to expose and oppose it.