NEW DELHI — While the government celebrates the World Bank’s latest reports as a validation of its economic policies, Left parties and trade unions have slammed the global lender’s prescriptions, terming them a "dangerous roadmap for inequality" that threatens to dismantle India’s economic sovereignty and worker rights.
The World Bank's recent Country Economic Memorandum, released in February 2025, dangles the carrot of India becoming a "High-Income Economy" by 2047. However, critics argue that the stick hidden behind this promise is a renewed onslaught of neo-liberal reforms designed to benefit global capital at the expense of India's working class and peasantry.
"Growth for Whom?"
Left leaders have sharply questioned the World Bank’s celebration of a 6.5% growth rate. "This is classic 'jobless growth,'" said a senior politburo member in a statement today. "While the World Bank projects stability, the reality on the ground is a 16.1% unemployment rate among our youth. The GDP figures are swelling, but the stomach of the common man is empty. This is a K-shaped recovery where billionaires thrive while real wages stagnate."
The Left vehemently contests the Bank's claim that extreme poverty has dropped to 2.3%. "This is a statistical jugglery," the statement read. "By keeping the poverty line artificially low, international agencies and the government are erasing the visibility of millions who struggle with hunger and malnutrition daily. It is a cruel joke on the poor."
The Attack on Workers and Agriculture
Most concerning to the Left is the World Bank’s structural recommendation to shift employment out of agriculture—aiming to reduce it to below 45%—and its push for "labor-intensive" industrialization.
Trade unions interpret the Bank's call for "flexible labor markets" and "easing business compliance" as a euphemism for the "Hire and Fire" regime. "The recommendation to move workers out of agriculture is a plot to facilitate corporate takeover of farmland," argued a leader of the All India Kisan Sabha. "Without creating secure, permanent industrial jobs, they are simply pushing farmers into becoming cheap, casual labor for urban sweatshops."
Sovereignty for Sale?
The World Bank’s insistence on raising investment to 40% of GDP through "easing FDI restrictions" and "trade integration" has also drawn fire. Left economists argue this paves the way for the unrestricted entry of multinational corporations into strategic sectors, further weakening domestic industries and MSMEs.
"The World Bank wants India to open its markets to global predators while dismantling the protective barriers for our small industries," the report analysis noted. "Their vision of 'Viksit Bharat' is one where Indian public assets are auctioned off to foreign entities and domestic cronies under the guise of 'efficiency.'"
A Call for Resistance
Instead of the World Bank’s model of privatization and deregulation, the Left is demanding a paradigm shift: a wealth tax on the super-rich, a legal guarantee of MSP for farmers, and massive public investment in health and education—not as "projects" for private players, but as fundamental rights.
"The roadmap to 2047 cannot be paved with the rights of workers," the collective statement concluded. "We reject this neo-liberal prescription. India needs development that uplifts the worker, not the stock market."
01 December
