Renowned Economist Parakala Prabhakar Critiques Government's Failures and Weakening of Institutions in New Book

New Delhi: Noted political economist, social commentator and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s husband- Parakala Prabhakar, conversed with Professor Apoorvanand at the Press Club of India in the national capital on Thursday over his new book ‘The Crooked Timber of New India’. “The country saw so many misadventures like demonetisation, ever-increasing prices of food and other essential things, unemployment skyrocketing and yet people chose this incompetent government again. Why do you expect that PM Modi or other ministers would talk about its promises and subsequent performance on these indicators? They feel empowered and emboldened for its incompetence,” Prabhakar said. 

Prabhakar added that the government, regardless of the personality who is leading, weakened institutions beyond imagination. Responding to a question about the mishandling of cultural institutions like the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, he said that it should not surprise anybody that its head is writing letters to people to buy his books on Amit Shah to deepen their understanding of philosophy.

“Planning Commission, a body tasked to research for nation making, was turned into a think tank ‘National Institute for Transforming India’. In its existence of nine years, it did not come up with a single paper on transforming India by addressing poverty and inequality,” he responded.

“What’s more problematic is celebrating things that others would consider shameful. Our number of billionaires has risen from 55 to 146. Our national debt has increased. The participation of labour, both men and women, is decreasing. We have the world’s largest number of malnourished children. What’s here for celebration?” he questioned.

“The government supporters say we have overtaken the United Kingdom to become the fifth largest economy. I am sorry, but three crore people have left agriculture because it is no longer sustainable. Then, there would be questions about what you have done that you are criticising the government. I am sorry, but I need no qualifications to criticise you,” he said.

He added that educational institutions, like Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Hyderabad Central University, are facing physical and ideological attacks.

 “I came from a humble family. I could study at JNU because the education was cheap and affordable. Had it been today’s India, children like me could not think about studying in these private universities with fancy buildings. I saw heart-wrenching scenes of violence in my alma mater, where students were soaked in blood. Importantly, the universities were arm twisted to tow the central line and defunded to exclude thousands of students who could contribute to the country’s progress,” he said.

He maintained that the government's attitude towards its programmes could be gauged from their treatment. He said, “There were very good programmes like Stand Up India, Swachh Bharat, Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao which could transform India, had it performed. However, they were turned into gimmicks for mere publicity. I was sifting through pages of annual reports of different ministries tabled in the Parliament of India and found that they have stopped discussing programmes, let alone their progress.”

Commenting on the treatment of minorities, Prabhakar referring to his new book ‘The Crooked Timber of New India’, said there was a distinguishing feature between the earlier regime of BJP and the current government on the question of minorities.

He said, “It is correct that the word secularism has vanished from the political conversation. BJP saw the question of minorities through the prism “puraskar(reward), tiraskar (condemnation) and prishkar (refinement). Lal Krishna Advani, in his autobiography, said that tiraskar was ineffective in assimilating Muslims into India's national life. However, we saw this regime applying this tool only. There are no Muslims in the cabinet. They did not offer a single ticket to a Muslim in the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat Elections.”