Former Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha said here on Sunday that the sole cause for the state of the Indian economy, as seen today, was demonetisation.
Mr. Sinha said this while discussing his autobiography Relentless on the last day of the Tata Lit Live Literature Festival in the city. During the course of his conversation with journalist Govindraj Ethiraj, the former minister held the current government up to scrutiny and also spoke about his political journey.
The name of his book, Mr. Sinha said, reflected the attitude that he prioritised at every stage of his life as well as the manner in which he followed the objectives set by him. “Even though I was the finance minister, it still does not qualify me to talk about the Indian economy. What I will say is that the main aim of the government should always remain to leave an economy better than one found it,” he said when asked about the current economic scenario.
Mr. Sinha said that the sole cause for the current state of economy is demonetisation. While he believed that GST was a good move in principle, the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member viewed the indirect tax regime with contempt.
Explaining that ministers today did not possess the basic knowledge about parliamentary proceedings, Mr. Sinha said, “When [Nirmala Sitharaman] fudged the numbers while presenting the Budget in Parliament, nobody raised any questions. I even called a few parliamentarians to raise issue with the numbers, but they did not do anything. The concern for the state of the country’s economy will never be more central than the supremacy that politics enjoys in India,” he said.
Reflecting on his journey from an IAS officer to the country’s finance minister, Mr. Sinha said that it was a conversation with former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru coupled with his admiration for Jayaprakash Narayan that pushed him to take the first, albeit uncertain, step into the political arena.
“Prime Minister Nehru said to me, then a young IAS officer, ‘You fellows think you are the best in the country, but I consider you to be second rate citizens because you prefer the warm blanket of security to a life of adventure’. I could never shake off that comment and so shook off the warm blanket of security and joined politics,” he said.
Asked why he chose to be part of the BJP in 1993 when he is so vocally against them today, he said he was presented with a choice of communalism or corruption. He said, “I chose communalism over corruption when I decided to join the BJP. At the time their core issues never came to the fore and I was never required to directly deal with them.”
Talking about the contemporary political milieu, Mr. Sinha said that the undeclared emergency in the country is more dangerous than it seems because of the government’s willingness to indulge in acts of personal vendetta, as illustrated by the revoking of journalist Aatish Taseer’s Overseas Citizen of India card.
“What is the point of being part of a Parliament where you are not allowed to speak? There is an element of fear that hangs over us. I do not know how long I will be able to enjoy my freedom,” he said while accusing the current government of turning fact to fiction.
He said he believed that it should be the relentless endeavour of every individual to point these out.
