PM has rightly warned against the freebies which benefit politicians but hurt development and future
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s admonition against freebies is very timely. He has correctly compared them with the free distribution of revdis (a kind of sweetmeat). Referring to this practice, he rightly said, “There is also a huge challenge... If attention is not paid now, it can cause a lot of damage to the youth of India and today’s generation. Your present will go astray and your future will be confined to darkness... That’s why it's important to wake up now. Nowadays, every effort is being made in our country to introduce the culture of collecting votes by distributing freebies.” He went on to point out that the leaders indulging in such culture “will never build new expressways, airports or defense corridors for you. They feel that they will buy the people by distributing freebies to them.” Though he didn’t take any names, the message was conveyed.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose Aam Aadmi Party is guilty of quite a few irresponsible populist measures, was quick to respond to the Prime Minister, “Allegations are being leveled against me but I want to ask what my mistake is. 18 lakh students are studying in Delhi govt schools. We are providing them with free, quality education. Am I committing a crime by giving them free, good education?” Sadly, this is a spiteful, not reasoned, response. Free education is not a freebie, but free bus commute to women, free electricity and water, etc., are.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that it is not just the AAP but all parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party, that are trying to collect votes by distributing freebies. The situation is especially bad at the state level. A recent study by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) study has underlined this fact. “We can identify a core subset of highly stressed states from among the 10 states identified by the necessary condition i.e., the debt/GSDP ratio. The highly stressed states are Bihar, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, and West Bengal,” it said. Punjab’s debt-GSDP ratio is the worst, and it is estimated to not only remain so but exceed 45 percent in 2026-27. And yet, the AAP government in the state has announced that around 51 lakh households will receive zero electricity bills from September as the government has promised 600 units of free power per billing cycle starting from July 1.
Populism has gone berserk in Punjab. Free power, however, is not the only opiate that is toxifying the body-politic and the body-economic; other populist measures are also harming public finance at the state level. Farm loan waivers are the best, or worst, examples of mindless populism. They are morally reprehensible (why shouldn’t one repay loans they have taken?) and fiscally ruinous. In the long run, they even hurt the intended beneficiaries, for the lenders become skeptical about giving money to farmers. In the long run, we become Sri Lanka.
