Criticism of government policies and Assam’s ruling dispensation  

Until some ten years ago, a citizen had the right to openly criticize a government’s decision, scheme, policy, etc. through newspaper articles or could express his discontentment letters to the editor of newspapers. A democratic environment prevailed and the government responded to such criticism.

Unfortunately, this democratic tradition in India has faded in recent years, and the ruling classes and its subordinate enormous mass media outlets have established a new climate where the objections and opinions of the populace are not respected. Although people still have the right to criticize the ruling dispensation, the voices of the people often fail to draw the attention of the ruling classes.

The ruling dispensation has influenced society with so many discourses that the common people are now confused and are reluctant to pay attention to criticism that analyze or criticizes the government policies. Common sayings like "Ministers and bureaucrats don't care about any arguments, comments, etc." are rapidly gaining traction in society to highlight the extent of this ignorance.

By seizing control of the media and using other devices like social media, the ruling dispensation has created such an atmosphere that they don’t feel any necessity to pay attention to criticism against the government's policies and programs, no matter how impartial and beneficial it may be.

We are sure that the issues we would like to raise here never draw the attention of the heads of state. Still, we want to raise some questions as a necessary component of democratic processes that provide the freedom to ask any query about the government.

Union junior health minister Bharti Pradhan Pawar made a disclosure in the Parliament on December 10 based on a current study entitled "National Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index,” by the NITI Aayog. Citing this report, the minister said that the poor people of Assam do not receive 47.87 per cent of the minimum requirements that they ought to receive as citizens of this country.

Now the question is why the Government, which has failed to provide the basic necessities to the state's impoverished, keeps launching extravagant projects that would cost thousands of crores of rupees. Why does the state create millions of beneficiaries when it must borrow thousands of crores of rupees each month just to cover the salaries and pensions of government employees? Whether the creation of such beneficiaries makes it possible for the state's poor to experience comprehensive development, or whether the number of such beneficiaries has been increased in order to produce worthless and idler citizens who will eventually become nothing more than voters who are totally reliant on the government's beneficiary oriented schemes!

Around six years ago, then-finance minister Himanta Biswa Sharma, gave an evasive response to these queries. When Dr. Sharma presented the budget for 2016–17 fiscal in the Assam Assembly, he highlighted his worry about the detrimental effects of the "beneficiary" system on a state's economy.

He made the following statement in this regard: “The non-plan expenditure has been mounting over a period of time. In the past few years, the budgets were replete with individual-beneficiary-oriented programmes and schemes. They did not stimulate growth. In many cases, the announced schemes were not implemented. If implemented, they were not completed. If completed, the funds could not be released as there were not enough resources. The net result of such process was that the state is burdened with enormous committed liabilities. More importantly, the dilemma is how to entertain such huge liabilities without ascertaining the veracity of such claims of liabilities and it needs time to establish the same. Thus, the sanctity of the budget has been got diluted to the great extent”.

About the government schemes and programmes he further stated: “Firstly, there are numerous schemes and programmes which were added year after year. In fact, the majority of them were included, in between the year, outside the Legislative Assembly, on the eve of New Year, Republic Day, Independence Day, etc. These schemes were mostly individual benefit-oriented and do not stimulate growth, do not inspire equity, do not cater to the development and nor do they contribute to employment. Now, it is time to review and consolidate. Instead, we need to initiate the growth-led schemes and programmes and each rupee so invested should multiply several times in the system.”

Finally, our major concern is how it is feasible to have additional beneficiaries under the same leader who has stated that the proliferation of beneficiary programs and the introduction of numerous subsidies do not contribute to advancing development, assuring equity, or creating jobs.