alt Hacker News> GST implementation
Needed. I run a business. The previous tax system was horrific in its complexity and corruption.
> Demonetisation
Implementation could have been better. But there is too much cash in the system for my comfort. Things must be digitized. We must ensure people pay their rightful share of taxes.
> unnecessary COVID restrictions etc
Hindsight. I remember how the media was blaming every single death on the government and making videos of funerals. We saw the best and worst of humanity during that period.
> He has also weakened all social welfare programs of the previous government by reducing funds or introducing restrictions designed to sabotage it for the intended beneficiaries
Have you looked at the subsidy bills? Have you looked at the finances of the state governments? You know Modi was against the rewadi culture and then had to get into competitive cash giving? I absolutely hate it. But that is the cost of doing politics in India.
Cities provide free bus rides to women, and run buses in competition to metro routes, making metros nonviable. This is such short-sighted behavior. I do not know what to say.
> fascist ideology
I do not agree with the criticism. At all. This is fairly typical of the nominal left in India and outside. Will paint with a large brush. To understand the RSS, you must go back to Hindu-Muslim relations in British India, to stoning of Hindu processions in Nagpur of the 1920s (which continue across India to this day), to the Moplah massacres and forced conversions of Hindus, and even farther back.[1]
My biggest problem with the RSS is the hubris in the top echelon and deep anti-intellectualism. Bhagwat's "same DNA" theory is a laugh riot.
But this is a different topic more suitable for a different thread.
[1] Pakistan: A 300-year-old project that Jinnah completed with Partition (https://www.indiatoday.in/opinion/story/partition-india-paki...)
Replies
All the data about India's demonetisation points to it being a complete and utter waste of time. The goalposts kept shifting and the whole aim was never clear. People died, please do not minimise their deaths.
The absolute disaster of how COVID was managed was a shame, and is a borderline crime against humanity. Again, please do not minimise the deaths of millions of Indians as "the media was blaming every single death on the government". The government of Indian was directly responsible for that entire fiasco.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree as, clearly, we are on different sides of the political spectrum and look at these things differently:
- Demonetisation, GST and lockdown: How the Modi government has wrecked India’s small businesses - https://scroll.in/article/1011509/demonetisation-gst-and-loc...
- India after Goods and Services Tax: Hundreds of thousands lose jobs, small businesses shut down - https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/india-after-goods-and-...
- How GST is killing small businesses with inspector raj and suffocating compliance - https://theprint.in/opinion/how-gst-is-killing-small-busines...
Dr. Manmohan Singh's conception of GST was indeed a good and necessary idea. But they way it was twisted and implemented to benefit crony capitalists and destroy India's informal economy was foolish as it was corrupt.