All Dressed Up But Going Nowhere

The annual ritual of the Union Budget has for long been diminishing in terms of its significance. Yet, it remains a media event in the Union Government’s calendar: an opportunity for the ruling party to grandstand as pro-people, even as it strives to mainly satisfy the fiscal consolidation requirements of the international credit-rating agencies and the world of high finance, which reward lower levels of sovereign debt and thereby frown on what they deem to be “high” public-sector borrowing requirements.

Union Budget 2018–19 is typical of this government’s political outlook. The Budget Speech was written for the media blitz that was to follow and not to present any coherent approach the government presumably has to resolve the problems of the ­Indian economy. Announcements that have been claimed to be radical policymaking initiatives are in fact a repackaging of ­existing policies. Statements of intention have been made to look like policy decisions. The crudeness with which the Narendra Modi government resorts to political posturing, aided by an ­unquestioning media, puts past governments to shame.