Modi era may have promoted the union of big capital with Hindutva, but people are beginning to see that cronyism is hollowing out the nation.

The Forbes World Billionaires annual list for 2024 included 25 new names from India, taking the number of Indians to 200. The Narendra Modi decade has undoubtedly been fantastic for a section of the super-rich, and through the years of COVID, reverse migration, agriculture crisis, and the collapse of many small and medium industries, the nation has efficiently produced billionaires. The joke is on us. We live in an age when some suggest that the bloated wedding of an heir to an Indian business magnate should be seen as a form of job creation.
The Modi years have blinded some of us to the morality of the common good, which translates to benefits for the entire community and the welfare of all. Among the factors leading to the reduced mandate for Modi’s BJP are the failure of Hindutva mobilisation, the supposed fading appeal of Modi himself, and the collapse of what the BJP/RSS call “social engineering” (other parties call it social justice). All these issues will continue to be tested in electoral battles this year.
But the other big factor lurking behind the public disenchantment is the realisation that the state is receding from the public sector and that pieces of what constitutes people’s assets are being hawked to private players. It is indeed the norm in India that private fortunes are also built from government contracts and leases to public resources and/or throughthe privatisation of public assets. One can, therefore, suggest a direct causal link between the creation of billionaires and the diminishing jobs in the government and the public sector.