Ordinarily, this should have been a moment to celebrate. Instead, bizarrely, a large section of India’s elite feels it has been robbed in broad daylight. There is widespread fear that India absolutely cannot afford such a scheme; that it will cripple an already devastated fiscal deficit; that it will turn India into a lazy, unproductive society, disinterested in searching for jobs; that India does not produce enough foodgrain to meet such a commitment; that just one drought year would break the back of the country; and that, assured of getting their food from the government, small farmers will stop tilling their farms altogether and India will be pushed to import foodgrain, further skewing the current account deficit. Yashwant Sinha, a senior BJP leader and India’s former finance minister, captured this zeitgeist when he said, “Why can’t people work and put food in their own stomach?” One day in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district would answer that question.
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 01:07:49 +0000
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