Modi regime’s role as a corporate-facilitator together with its maddening pace towards a majoritarian Hindu Rashtra, is steadily assuming unprecedented far-right political-economic dimensions. A notable move in this direction, which is also perfectly in tune with the ‘cultural nationalism’ of RSS, has been the anti-Federal move towards simultaneous elections to Parliament and State Assemblies (also called “One Nation One Election” – ONOE). As is obvious, the objective behind this is the establishment of a unitary, highly centralised and majoritarian fascist regime and total demolition of whatever left of Federalism in the Indian Constitution. And, it is also inseparable from the ongoing efforts to super-impose one culture, one religion, one language, one police, and so on, at the pan-Indian level.
Along with opposition parties, all democratic forces and well-meaning people from all walks of life have come up against this fascist move, even as the ruling regime has justified simultaneous elections in terms of saving in cost and for avoidance of disruptions in development work due to elections. In September 2023, the government had appointed a High Level Committee headed by Ramnath Kovind, former President of India, to examine the whole issue of holding simultaneous elections for the Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies and Local Bodies of all States. And, in spite of serious objections, the Modi government has introduced the 129th Amendment Bill for changing the basic character of the Constitution in relation to this. Now, this Bill which was introduced in Lok Sabha in December 2024, is referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for scrutiny.
Revealingly, two prominent neoliberal economists have recently appeared before the JPC in the guise of sharing valuable insights regarding ONOE. Of the two, one is the renowned Gita Gopinath, a naturalized American citizen. As a prominent American economist from Harvard, which plays a leading ideological role in shaping global neoliberal governance, Gita became the Chief Economist and later the First Deputy Managing Director of IMF, the key promoter of neoliberal corporatism, the hallmark of which is unfettered cross-border mobility of corporate capital through liberalisation/deregulation, privatization and globalisation. Revealingly, till her appointment as Chief Economist of IMF, during 2016-18, Gita was the Honorary Economic Advisor to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, leader of the depoliticised CPI (M). She was also a Member of the Eminent Persons Advisory Group on G-20 Matters for India’s Ministry of Finance. Gita’s appearance before the JPC, as the former IMF Deputy Managing Director, and sharing of her views ardently supporting ONOE, have already got much attention from Godi media.
The second expert, who appeared before JPC and shared his positive views on ONOE along with Gita, was Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) since 2022, with the rank of Secretary, Government of India. Though a neoliberal economist by profession, Sanyal is widely known as a Sangh Parivar ideologue, especially as a staunch advocate of “new history writing”, a major trend in 21st century neofascism at a global level. As such, while remaining an EAC-PM member, Sanyal’s main work is linked with the ongoing majoritarian and Islamophobic campaign to create a new Hindutva-oriented history. Many concerned scholars and historians have already exposed his affinity to majoritarian prejudices, accused him of “historical distortion”, lack of scholarly rigor, depth,”contextual understanding, and even called his conclusions as “bastardized form of early colonial interpretations”. However, as usual, the corporate -saffron media have no qualms in eulogising him and highlighting his appearance to JPC along with Gita Gopinath.
As representatives of neoliberal corporatism, the wholehearted support of far-right experts like Gita and Sanyal to ONOE serves an ideological function too. Of course, already being integrated with the Hindutva bandwagon, Sanyal’s support to ONOE is perfectly in tune with his anti-federal, unitary, and majoritarian Hindutva orientation. On the other hand, Gita’s solidarity with simultaneous indian elections is intertwined with IMF’s prescription on downsizing of government and rollback of state expenditures. At a time when horrific proportions of public funds are appropriated by corporates and crony capitalists, and even as trillions of rupees worth corporate tax exemptions are available to them, Gita’s main concern is with the expenditures (for Lok Sabha election, average total expenditure by Election Commission, Parties and candidates is estimated at around ₹50000 crore in India) required for separate elections. Another argument in favour of ONOE by Gita is that separate elections will disrupt the development effort which, amid the rhetoric of Viksit Bharat, is very appealing to Indian rulers.
As a matter of fact, if Gita Gopinath, as an American citizen and as a former IMF expert, is that much concerned about election expenditures, then she should have raised this issue before appropriate US bodies or in front of US voters. For, as already noted, when the Indian parliament election requires ₹50000, US presidential election alone needs an expenditure of ₹ 135,000 crore ($15 billion dollar). Further, US presidential election and State elections are separate and take place at different levels, and the entire election proces including constitutional procedures and funding, etc., amply reflect significant powers for federal states, which have different sets of rules and regulations. All these make American election expenditures several times larger than that of India, the most populous country in the world. Obviously, US imperialism, the supreme neocolonial arbiter does not require Gita Gopinath like experts’ advice in this regard. Same was the case when GST was super- imposed over India, the blueprint of which was prepared by a whole a set of US agencies. When GST that took away the federal tax powers of States in India, no neoliberal expert has come forward with a similar GST proposal for the US.
To be precise, the direct involvement of pro-corporate neoliberal experts in the Hindutva fascist project of demolishing Indian federal structure emanates from global corporate capital’s need of a unified Indian market in gross disregard of the complexities and diversities of multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious India. In the specific case of India, in accomplishing this task, Gita Gopinath like Indian-born American experts act as bridge between neoliberal imperialism and Indian ruling regime, it’s faithful lackey.
Postscript : In this context, the adorable initiative on the part of a group of leading International Experts including Nobel Laureate, renowned economists, policy experts, and others, in writing an Open Letter addressed to Modi government on MGNREGA repeal, should be duly acknowledged. Raising their concerns on demolishing MGNREGA, world’s largest rights-based public employment programme, and replacing it with VB-G RAM G as a tool of Central regime that puts the financial burden on States, these world-famous experts, mainly from US and EU, have characterised the move as a “structural sabotage” and a “historic error”. While upholding the heartwarming response of these concerned scholars and experts, as Indian citizens, it is our task to expose the pro-corporate and anti-people essence of neoliberal think-tanks.
