In the post-Covid world, India is going to go through difficult times – like most other nations. The pandemic is stretching health systems, and also forcing lockdowns which are creating a parallel economic pandemic. The longer the lockdowns go on, the greater will be the damage. Like the coronavirus curve, the economic stress curve will also rise exponentially with each passing day. Flattening this curve and getting growth going again will prove more challenging.
The current period between the pre-Covid world and the post-Covid world gives us time to think and imagine the future. What should India do? How can India rise? Can we use this crisis to give India a Nayi Disha (new direction) – one which takes us on an irreversible forward path towards freedom and prosperity because the two are inextricable intertwined.
During 2017-2018, I had tried to create a movement for prosperity. You can read my writings and see my videos, with more details at the Nayi Disha and Dhan Vapasi websites.The Nayi Disha manifesto encapsulates my thinking.
While I failed then to even make a dent, I think the ideas are even more important now. The temptation for India’s leaders will be to print a lot of money, give it to people and run huge deficits to try and save the economy. This will take us in the opposite direction to both freedom and prosperity.
Instead, there is an alternate path – one which can truly transform our future. This involves combining public asset monetisation with returning the wealth generated back to the people. This is perhaps the only approach that will create lasting prosperity in the shortest possible period for the maximum number of Indians. I will show the what, why and how in future blog posts.
