Historic budget?

Every year, when the Indian budget is presented in February, politicians and parties aligned with the government in New Delhi use the exact same word – ‘Historic’ – to praise and glorify the budget. The term ‘historic’ is not difficult for even a layman to understand, but what makes politicians use this word repeatedly is amusing. Of course, they are celebrating the thousands of crores of rupees allocated to various ministries and projects, which will ultimately end up at their private disposal.
At the ground level, for the common man, there is nothing historic about the so-called ‘historic budget’. What is so historic about it when India’s per capita income is lower than Bangladesh, when the Human Development Index ranks 134 out of 193, when air quality and pollution are severe, when roads are dusty and dangerous, when infrastructure is pathetic and crumbling, when public services are poor and inefficient, when corruption is rampant like a disease, and the list goes on and on. Even the India-EU FTA, labeled as the ‘Mother of all deals’, has little to offer the general public. When the government cannot even provide affordable and comfortable public transport to its citizens, is it good news for the common man that European luxury cars like Mercedes, BMW, Lamborghini, and Audi are becoming cheaper in India? When the average person in India can barely afford mustard oil, milk, and basic vegetables, is it really good news for them that French wine, German beer, Italian olive oil, European cheese, and processed foods are becoming cheaper? The items that are getting cheaper are mostly luxury goods, affordable only to the wealthy and not to the about 800 million Indians living in poverty. Political leaders are intelligent enough to know what is truly historic, but corruption always seems to prevail, and the only thing that remains truly historic in India is the widening gap of poor getting poorerand rich getting richer. This is the sad reality. And lastly, the Nagaland state Hornbill tableau, displayed at the 2026 Republic Day of India, was the worst. Kuknalim.
R.Francis Kikon
Naharbari, Dimapur.