Never Before Budget: an Akbar-

Akbar and Birbal were meeting for their monthly Mann ki baat, friends they were, they have made it a habit to meet once each month.

Akbar: "Hello Birbal, what is news from Hindustan?"

Birbal: "As 2020 is ending, Ms Ram has announced that 2021 budget will be a never before budget presented in the last 100 years.

Akbar: what is a budget?

Birbal: the annual practice of the government to mop up revenue in the pretext of spending on development. When I looked at Google, I understood that the first budget in independent India got presented in 1947-48 by Mr Shanmukhan Chetty. Then, how did the 100 years come about? I wondered. Would there be an act of God in it to be considered as 'never before?'

Looking back, the Mouni Singh presented what has been considered as an epochal budget in 1991 under the tutelage of the modern Nero who kept his fingers crossed when a masjid got pulled down one year later. Arguably India started marching in the next two decades to become one of the fastest economies and the elephant did dance.

Akbar: I like the expression "elephant did dance."

Birbal: However, since 2014 our country has been on a path of reversal. "What they didn't do in 70 odd years we would do in 7 years" or so has been some sort of motto for the present regime. Like the 2020 cricket where fortunes turn in the blink of an eye Bangladesh went ahead in GDP and our country slipped two ranks in the human development index (HDI) to rub salt in the wound. However, one might call it foul for the UN to have accepted such an index developed by a Pakistani economist which was so designed to pull down our country, the fact remains what it is it is.

Akbar: Pakistani's hand is every- where it seems!!

Birbal: Anyway, Ms Ram has already begun her consultations with the honchos, that the farmers protest was pointing out, as behind the farm laws. With the Bharat jewel Ratan also joining the band wagon would food growing be corporatized? And the corporate hand be seen everywhere.

Akbar: who are the honchos:

Birbal: the ones whose paunches keep growing in proportion with hunger among the common people.

Akbar: why are the farmers protesting?

Birbal: Not because Singapore has already approved lab grown meat (or whatever one may call it). Will India soon catch up as replicating Singapore model in our cities has been a favourite dream of our politicians of all hues and not only saffron.

Farmers are protesting against farm laws which they fear would make the paunches of honchos even bigger.

Birbal continued

Hunger has risen during COVID times and women have lost more jobs. Would the budget be a 'ration'al one giving doles in the coming year too? Much promised jobs are not to be seen and what will happen to the demographic dividend we are supposed to harness? Foreign investment is seen in the stock market making the bulls go wild but no job creation.

Akbar: Birbal, stop this wining. Any solution from your side?

Birbal: I would like to suggest a new post called the Chief-Cow Economics Affairs be created which could explore making cow and her products as central to the revival of economy. The CCEA may consider first an assessment study of the schemes that the ganja yogi has been implementing in the utter hopeless Pradesh which is the forerunner for the much talked about Ram Rajya.

Akbar: Another post!! I hope they would appoint a desi economist, but he should know how to milk a cow. Haha!

Birbal: Our biggest challenge however is what I discovered recently as the MAD group (Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits) who are ubiquitous in the cow belt and stand excluded from the development processes. Along with Bangladesh we must encourage Pakistan to move ahead in GDP and HDI so that the Muslims would reverse migrate as is already happening as per government admission vis-à-vis Bangladesh. That would get rid of 15% of the population. However, the challenge remains about adivasis and Dalits whom one sadvi referred to as shudras. Why do Shudras feel bad about being called as Shudras in this twenty first century modern India (euphemism for Ram Rajya)? As the same Sadvi had posed.

Akbar: I thought MAD referred to a mental state of citizens!

Birbal: As the ancient language Tamil (which our beloved PM has taken to in recent times) saying goes "patta kalile padum" which means the injured leg will get injured again, the recent debacle of the Team India to get 36 all out in a test match proves that difficulty after difficulty has struck India in 2020. When I first heard this number 36, I wondered it read like the congress score card in the parliamentary election. In a nutshell even in cricket, following our GDP and HDI, we are biting dust. Is this a result of dynastical tendencies in the BCCI? What say terminator (of termites)? Do we then need a par'desi' coach?

Akbar: asking terminator about dynasty policies, that is a good one, Birbal!

Birbal: your majesty, I am talking in whispers about whether we had lost some precious land to the bully neighbours. No point in asking the government about it. I already know the answer. They would say if you file a RTI question that the government don't have data on this.

Akbar: you are right, even the walls have ears, they say!!

Birbal: Even if you have been reading this story carefully and wondering why I am about cricket, defence and hunger in the same breath, I would answer putting myself in the 'paduka' (footwear) of Ms Ram I wonder how am I to do justice to competing demands. I am clear priority is for the honchos and to feed their paunches. Then comes everything else. If these things don't work there is always the god to take the blame. Not for nothing we humans have created gods. In sum, that is the 'never before' budget for you.

Akbar: when you talk of God, is it Allah you talk about?

Birbal: Never sir! It is Lord Ram. Everything is about Lord Ram these days in Hindustan.

Akbar: what about the MAD group who don't follow Lord Ram?

Birbal: That is the biggest challenge that Hindustan is facing since independence.

They both sighed and took a sip of their wine.