Whatever the cause, the price is enormous.

"A bigger stimulus would have been the right way to address a crisis in aggregate demand. But that's not India's problem: Until we figure out the best way to reopen, the country needs less economic activity, not more," wrote Mihir Sharma. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a stimulus measure worth Rs 20 trillion on 14 May, but the package explained by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was all about trying to lower the cost of borrowing. "India's debt remains under control instead of exploding. Most importantly, Modi's government has not been foolish enough to reverse decades of painful institutional reforms and demand the central bank start monetizing its debt." Apparently, direct taxpayers are not pleased with reforms in agriculture because that may increase the cost of food, wrote Chairman of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) Bibek Debroy. That seems counterfactual because the poor spend a higher proportion of their earnings on food, rural more than urban. A survey in 2017-18 showed that consumer spending declined for the first time in four decades, with people spending less on food. "In the case of the covid economic package, ironically, the government has displayed vision, kept the medium to long term in view and has used the crisis to usher in some long-pending and much needed reforms, instead of focusing too hard on short-term palliatives," wrote member of EAC-PM Prof VA Anantha Nageswaran. "A key element of Modi's approach to economics is a system of incentives and penalties where all economic actors -- rich or poor, small or big firms -- are made to embrace behavioral changes. If his methods deviate from traditional economic advice, which is obsessed with monetary and fiscal measures, it may be because he doesn't give these as much importance as his own instincts," wrote R Jagannathan. It is terrifying that the future of a nation of 1.3 billion citizens is dependent on one man's instinct and not on any science or knowledge. What these erudite men do not explain is why Modi imposed a total lockdown on 24 May when the total number of confirmed cases were an insignificant 519, and is lifting it now when the rate of infections is rising everyday, with 6,088 new cases in the last 24 hours. Was it really to control spread of the virus or to stop protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that Modi effectively destroyed the economy? Fiscal deficit is likely to rise much higher than predicted in the budget because tax collections will fall, wrote Aparna Iyer. The Reserve Bank (RBI) has been buying government securities in the open market. This may be called quantitative easing but is monetizing debt indirectly. Recently the RBI bought government bonds and treasury bills from the secondary market in another sign of taking government debt on to its books. Whatever the reason, the lockdown has extracted a heavy price. We will pay for a long time.