The last five years appear to us as a series of 100-meter sprints for India’s small businesses and informal workers, one at a time. Be it f...
The last five years appear to us as a series of 100-meter sprints for India’s small businesses and informal workers, one at a time. Be it for demonetisation, or Goods and Services Tax or the lockdown, each time the citizens are expected to run and endure what is called momentary hardships, purportedly to achieve what is said to be a “noble goal”.
At times it is “ache din”, “Digital India”, “surgical strike on black money”, “Rs 15-lakhs to every citizen”, “Make in India”, “Aatma Nirbhar Bharat”, “five trillion economy” – a carrot that changes every once in a while. Each one is packaged with the correct mix of demagoguery, branding and high decibels in the media newsrooms that has rendered us into a country that lives in short bursts and even shorter memories.
The manufactured euphoria is used as a smokescreen that shrouds the larger picture – a marathon race to the finish. A race that was flagged off with the slogan of “sabka saath sabka vikas”, but which over the years has been designed to decimate the small entrepreneurs and the informal sector in favour of big capital.
First blood: Demonetisation
One of the first hurdles that was erected on the tracks of the small...
