PM Pakoda Statement of Employment
In January this year, our current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi shook the social media with his simmering ‘PAKODA’ statement in an interview to Zee News Channel.
Could this be a slip of tongue? Surely not.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an advance politician who has a staggering record of setting goals and achieving them, so be it a JAN DAN Yojna or START Up India or any other program. It is an a different story whether these programs have achieved its objectives to eternity or not.
So when he made such a statement was he hinting at something more? Surely yes. So let’s detail the episode.
It was when Zee News journalist Sudhir Chaudhary intrigued the prime minister on the employment subject for the youth in the county. The journalist reminded the prime minister of his promise for 1 crore jobs per year during your last general election campaign.
I, as a viewer of that interview on my smart mobile phone felt admiration for the sleekness that first daring question sneaked in the interview. But our prime minister who as ever is as advance in his approach, with no trepidation, mentioned of Pradhan Mantri Mudra Loan Yojna and pronounced that there are 10 crore people who have enjoyed the policy in which 3 crore people our first time business runners. If, you do simple math then what the prime minister meant was… see I had promised for 5 crore jobs creation in 5 years but I have already delivered 10 crore job creators in 4 years of my governance. Mind you, I am keeping demonetization exercise out of this current statement because I suppose the reader will add demonetization subject by herself while analysing the job creation argument.
However, while watching the interview, I knew prime minister has just hit a six on a full toss ball, but sooner I realized that ball was a no ball and the prime minister has got a free hit. In the zest of answering this daring question asked by the journalist, he continued with his unprecedented statement in the fervour to emancipate entrepreneurship.
What’s next?
Social Media was waiting as a third umpire. The critique may say the prime minister is not aware of economic terminologies like unorganised sector and organised sector and the indicators of these sectors to capture the same in GDP.
But, is that it? Could it be so simple? As it is surely not like this.
The PM is fully aware of all economic terminologies and its relevance to GDP. Therefore, this time Bhaiyo aur Baino, what our prime minister indirectly was telling the country to my surprise has gone a miss in the reportage about this much-awaited interview after a long gap. The mainstream news channels and newspapers who often critique government were also behaving like social media, making videos and meme capturing common people’s perception and responses to this Pakoda statement. The common man in shown desperate for a job in the mix market economy of India and is upset with the prime minister analogy of a street vendor to an employed person.
Prime minister was correct on his part in an attempt to make a street vendor, at least, believe that he is no less than big franchise owner of some international brand but the only error caused was that he made the statement without any qualifier and which further turned against him where people were to be upset on social media outlets. The YouTube videos reaction of people is fully legitimate to a point where the prime minister had forgotten the difference of business and employment while making such an analogy. The analogy also failed because employment are the product of institutions and street business are independent of any institution, whatsoever, unless they have to bribe some local authority to run a street business like selling a pakado outside some news channel gate.
Perhaps, this was precisely the point behind the pakoda statement.
With the advent of GST, gradually, if not sooner, the street business wouldn’t have to bribe any local authority because there is a government to protect them from such mal-practices. It’s better to open a legitimate business under government norms and maybe perhaps avoid street kind of business of selling pakodas. Now, if I may take the liberty to add the current governments take on FDI in retail into this. The reader knows better. It looks easier said than done. It’s not easy nor ethical if we see street vendors’ disappearing from the street in the wake of anticipated norms and policies under FDI in retail. In brief, the prime minister was not citing any less impressive example, but at his level of diplomacy he was making a strikingly futuristic remark on which he intends to work.
Well, at the outset, this attempt to escalate the development story of VIKAS before next general elections looks somewhat of a fairy-tale. I, in the capacity of a citizen would only request the government to have more equal priorities in place before conceiving VIKAS along the lines of insufficient and ineffective development model. Local priorities of local people in pan India are more important than international priority of a sectorial population that would surely be not satiated by a temporary gift of a bullet train. The voter is also a watcher, say one common man was selling pakoda before the current government came to power and continue selling the same without any escalation, whatsoever. Here, the voter expects from the government a procedural ease of doing business. Therefore, as long the FDI in retail do not drift the pakoda seller from his point of business on the street and till the time government is able to create administrative easy for the same seller until then it will be difficult to say whether a common man will go in a A/C mall to eat pakoda.
Views are personal and independent of any media or political organisation.
