Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleged in the Lok Sabha on Monday that whenever Congress has come to power, it has brought inflation.
He said that two songs related to inflation became superhit in the country.
One is ‘Inflation Mar Gayi’ and the other is ‘Inflation Daayan Khae Jaat.’
Both these songs came during Congress governments. Not only this, PM Modi said that despite the war in Ukraine and Gaza and the Covid pandemic, inflation in the country is under control and has never reached double digits.
He held the country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru till Indira Gandhi responsible for the high inflation rate.
In such a situation, it is important to know where the inflation rate was during the tenure of Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi and where is it during the reign of Narendra Modi?
According to the data of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD, the inflation rate in India was 1.78 percent in 1960, which increased to 3.63 percent in 1962.
Pandit Nehru’s tenure lasted from 1947 to 1964. Meanwhile, the inflation rate recorded a jump from 1.78 percent to 13.36 percent. The country was then surrounded by many crises ranging from food crisis to war with China.
Pandit Nehru died in 1964. After him Lal Bahadur Shastri took command of the country. However, his tenure lasted only for two years.
Between 1965 and 1966, the country’s inflation rate was 9.47 percent and 10.80 percent respectively. After Shastri ji’s untimely demise in January 1966, Indira Gandhi took charge of the country. She previously remained Prime Minister continuously for 11 years (from 1966 to 1977). In 1970, he himself took charge of the Finance Ministry.
Inflation figures saw huge fluctuations during the reign of Indira Gandhi. When he took over the power of the country, the inflation rate was 10.80 percent.
The very next year it increased to 13.06 percent. This happened when agricultural states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh faced severe famine and drought in 1966.
Due to crop failure, the crisis of mass starvation had arisen. International help had to be sought to deal with this.
However, in 1969, the inflation rate in the country reached minus figures. Then -0.58 percent inflation rate was recorded, but when Indira joined hands with Pakistan and liberated Bangladesh, the country’s inflation rate doubled. The inflation rate of 3.08 percent in 1971 reached 6.44 percent by 1972.
In the history of the country’s economic progress, Indira Gandhi is also criticized because during her tenure i.e. in 1974, the country saw the highest recorded level of inflation. Then the inflation rate was recorded at 28.60 percent.
A year before that this rate was 16.94 percent. At that time the country was going through a huge economic crisis. Crop production was low, oil prices were very high in the international market.