There are many who want to keep India enslaved

Dr Manmohan Singh wants to lead India on the fast track to progress. However, his strategy can also lead to servitude if we are not careful. The same log of wood can be used for putting a yoke on the bullock or for making a cross to hang Jesus Christ. It is inadequate to say that the country should develop the capacity to produce wood. It is more important to ensure the correct use of the wood. By BHARAT JHUNJHUNWALA The Statesman Jul 05, 2005

In his address to the Indira Gandhi conference, the Prime Minister said, “India needs a renewed bout of economic dynamism. A new wave of investment based on the entrepreneurship and creativity of all those who believe in the idea of India. There are many more across the world who also want India to succeed, to prosper. We must enable their creativity, their enterprise, and their faith in India to find expression in as many ways as possible”.

Two aspects: But the Prime Minister is forgetting that also there are many who want to keep India enslaved. Multinational companies want to kill Indian companies. Microsoft does not want India to make use of the Linux software that is available free. It is also keen to invest in India so that it can reduce the cost of its Windows software. Which of the two aspects of Microsoft is the Prime Minister invoking in saying that there are “many who also want India to succeed?” Investment by Microsoft in India will be the path to India’s servitude because it will strengthen Microsoft’s monopoly of the world software market. Most profits generated in its India operations will go to Microsoft. The USA and India’s dependence on that company will be deepened. India will come out of servitude if it uses Linux instead of Windows. The Prime Minister should clarify what type of creativity and enterprise he is speaking about. Creativity by Indian scientists in upgrading Linux would get India out of servitude while creativity by Indian scientists working for Microsoft would deepen the same.

The Prime Minister said, “By the end of my term in office I would like to see world class power generation, world class highways, world class ports and airports, and world class banking and communications infrastructure”. Rightly said. The problem, however, is that these world class facilities can also be used by rich countries to extract our resources. For example, there was no railway in the 18th century. Yet 23 per cent of world’s income was in India. Railways, telephone, telegraph, airports, electricity, canal and other infrastructure were developed in the 200 years of British rule. But the share of India in the world income declined to a mere three per cent. Development of world class infrastructure became the route to our servitude. The main question relates to terms of trade. If we sell costly and import cheap material then the infrastructure will be beneficial. If we do the opposite, it will be the route to servitude. World class ports can enable us to import cheap silicon chips, oil and fertilizers from foreign countries; or for importing high-priced drugs by air loads.

Boon or bane: We could, for example, make OPEC-like cartels for coffee, rubber and iron ore to jack up the prices of these exports. We could push for loosening of the Patents Act in the WTO to reduce the cost of imports. Whether the infrastructure is a boon or bane will be determined by the pricing of our exports and imports. On this the Prime Minister is silent. It is possible then that, in his dispensation, the infrastructure will be used to extract our resources as was done during the British Raj.

The Prime Minister said, “We ought to resist the temptation to copy consumption habits of the post-industrial economies of the West. These consumption habits constitute a grave threat to the life support systems of our planet and could do irreparable damage to the environment. The challenge ahead is to abolish mass poverty and unemployment even at relatively low level of per capita income”. Rightly said. But what is our policy? To lift our people from the low level of incomes; and to remove the present inequality in the world economy? Twenty per cent of people of the Western countries are consuming 80 per cent of the world’s resources. The low levels of income and the inequality in the world economy will be perpetuated if we are happy with our poverty and rich countries pollute the global environment with their high levels of consumption. Our poor will be paying the price of profligacy of the western consumer.

The real solution will emerge from the end of consumerist culture both in India and the West. The need is to launch a just war for reducing the consumption levels of the West that are jeopardising the global environment. But the Prime Minister is silent on this issue. He focuses more on making sure that our poverty is eco-friendly. Presently the Reserve Bank of India is buying US Treasury Bills and providing money to Americans to continue in their binge of consumption. We are encouraging Pepsi, Coca Cola, Nestle and Star TV to promote western consumerism in India. The Prime Minister should ensure that the Government of India does not support such consumption both in the West as well as in India. But he seems to be preaching abstinence to the poor in India while subsidising consumption by the rich in the West.

The Prime Minister has said, “We must create social safety nets that protect the marginalised from the adverse consequences of the change”. Rightly said. We will have to increase employment and also run schemes like Antyodaya, Indira Awas and Employment Guarantee Scheme. But what is the Prime Minister’s view on the jobs being eaten away by the big companies? We have rendered our people unemployed in the quest of efficient production.

Uncivil contractors: Big companies have forced the closure of lakhs of cottage soap, match-box and bottled drinks units. On the one hand, we are giving freedom to the big companies to pull down the thatched roof from over the heads of the poor and, on the other hand, the government is erecting tents to give them shelter. If the Prime Minister restrains the use of job-eating technologies then the poor will not become homeless in the first place and there will remain no need for the government to erect the tents.

The Prime Minister has said, “Our civil society organisations need to be continually energised and empowered”. Trade unions, professional associations and religious orders are all part of civil society. They are not uncivil. But there has arisen a huge army of NGOs which is undertaking contracts for domestic and foreign powers and posing as civil society. Rather they are uncivil contractors. In our tradition the civil society was strictly independent of the government. Our civil society was free of government mischief. The Prime Minister should clarify which civil society he wants to encourage. His formulation also allows the West-funded fifth column to operate freely in the name of civil society and enslave India for their petty gains. The points outlined by the Prime Minister are inadequate as they can be used for enslavement.