COVID-19 Pandemic: Can India Be Self Reliant In The Middle Of A Pandemic?

Indian being self-reliant is equivalent to India not indulging in globalization. Forbes has termed 2020 in India as the worst-hit economy in 42 years. Forbes has also questioned the Prime Minister regarding the same. The economy is not only in a bad state because of the lockdown but also because of certain reforms that were made earlier. Indian needs about 9% growth over five years to achieve the $5 trillion economy. This is according to January 2020 before the lockdown came into effect. Moody’s slashed India’s GDP growth to 0 in the future year 2021. All this was the state of our country before the lockdown came into effect. How will India be self-reliant with zero money with the lockdown? Empty promises won’t get us anywhere, action will.

It is often found that the economy goes downhill treated well. The great depression of 1929 happened because of workers exploitation. The upper class flooded the market with cheap goods by reducing the cost of the goods which were produced. The earnings of the workers was reduced. Pretty soon there was no one buying the goods in the market because of a lack of income. This resulted in the upper class going bankrupt because of zero income. Will this happen in India too? Is this how we build self-reliant India?
The term self-reliance in India was based on five pillars. It is extremely funny that the biggest company in India, Jio, cannot work without the silicon technology of Chinese!

Self-Reliant India is a fantasy if the government does not take proper measures and does not acknowledge that some sort of external help is also needed. If there is anything that needs to be self-reliance right now, that is the citizens. The citizens of the country must be self-reliant and independent in India and must feed themselves with food and sleep with a happy heart.

For self-reliant India one more slogan was given, Be Vocal For Local. The Prime Minister aims to boost the supply chain in the country and promote local commodities. And the prime minister believes that this will improve the economic condition of the country. The concept of liberalization and globalization is thrown in trash clearly. The modern-day capitalist system runs on the integration of our economy with the world economy. Countries are supposed to be dependent on one another for the benefit of humankind. Cross-border trade with import and export are one of the most important factors of GDP.

Indian Yoga was a funny thing in itself. The concept of meditation came before the formation of our country. These are just facts and not empty statements being made unlike how the nation was addressed. 

The whole concept of starting a relief package which is 10% of the GDP might be a huge lie in itself too. The small example of this is that the people of the country are sleeping on railway tracks, where is the money of the taxpayers being used? The whole situation revolving around the migrant laborers tells us how we relief packages are used. And these are not just statements being made by people, this can be backed up by stats.

Between March 27 and April 13, 100% of the migrant workers in Uttar Pradesh did not get any ration, 64% didn’t get cooked meals. If we talk about Maharashtra, 99% didn’t get any ration while 58% didn’t get any food.

If this is the truth about self-reliant India then yes we are independent and yes we can sustain ourselves. People will die of no money, people will die because of hunger, people will die of trains running over them. Concrete measures must come out. We the people believe in action and not words. Mere words and promises won’t suffice this time!