‘Make in India’ a call by PM Modi: What’s your view?

Our PM Modi is certainly doing great in selling the Image India abroad. His ‘Make In India’ is a call upon international companies, NRI s, manufacturers, businesses, countries to come & make long term investment in India. This will certainly boost the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment).

The FDI comes to India in 2 ways. One, through investment instruments in stock markets. Second is through companies establishing their businesses, manufacturing here. Both are important and good. But the first one creates a greater volatility. They pump in and pull out depending upon various speculations. That creates a panic situation and market mayhem quite often draining lot of energy in assuaging it.

The call for Make in India is more strategic. The companies which Make in India will have to make long term investment here. They have to look at India as a strategic partner in both low cost, high quality manufacturing but also as a hub for marketing in Asia. They are also likely to look at India as a great domestic market.

For the urban educated Indian this is certainly a sexy appeal. This makes us proud Indian. The foreign investment will lock into our soil on a long term basis. This will boost Indian economy. This will boost jobs in manufacturing. The FDI pull out is that much more difficult for companies.

Economic Score is like Exam Score: Only answer to Questions & Need not know entire subject

Make in India is a call primarily to boost Indian Economy. The economic scores are represented by GDP, GNP etc., It is very easy to score that. 3 primary things will score that:

1.       Produce a lot: most efficiently, with very minimal input and maximum output

2.       Consume a lot: Keep changing cars, keep changing upholstery, keep buying more clothes, shoes, gadgets, packed food, movie tickets, sports tickets, plastics, steel, everything; Buy more pay less

3.       Move Money a lot: If above 2 keeps happening unhindered, then local banks upto world bank have a simple formula to keep disbursing more money. There is no limit binding to the concept of money. It can be millions, billions, zillions. You just need to prove that you produce a lot & push it down consumers. Then money will be disbursed to the producer as loan.

In our current education system, the exam score represents the excellence on a subject. For exam scoring, if you solve last 10 year question papers you are assured of good score. Without knowing the depth of the subject by scoring in exam you can claim excellence on a subject.

One important aspect in our education system is each subject is in isolation. An economics student doesn’t need to know sociology. A sociology student doesn’t know legislation. A law student doesn’t care manufacturing. And it goes on.

The current education system develops skills in isolation. It just equips a person to earn his living. It doesn’t teach holistic value system for harmonious living.

The government’s chase of economic score is similar to our education system. There is no depth of analysis. There is no interrelation with the aspects of the society like sustainability, culture, social harmony, ecology etc.,

Social Impact of Mindless focus on Economics

Economics looks at written records on books of money inflow and outflow. Everything is measured in terms of the money. For example if India produces 1 million plastic bottles, the economics will calculate the input costs, selling worth of each bottle, calculate the revenue & profit and records in the books. That bubbles up at the country level to calculate various economic numbers.

One of the main input materials is water for any industry. And that is not correctly costed. It cannot be. If it is rightly costed then everything becomes unviable. Factories are put up where Water is rich. What is counted in books is pump/bore well cost and a bit of arbitrary environment charges if any government department cares.

The costs of water that are not counted are:

-          The local lake that gets dried up rendering rural population poorer by water

-          The river bed drying up making downstream villages for 100s of kilometers go dry

-          The industrial waste release rendering the downstream river lifeless and poisonous

These will have major social impact for harmonious rural living. Rural population migrates to urban slums in search of living. There will be jobs generated for factories along a river in thousands. But lakhs along the downstream river will become water poor. They will be forced to migrate.

Lets try to simplify this phenomenon. We are producing cars in India. The number of cars produced is directly proportional to the economic strength of India. That means the more the cars we produce the more the India becomes rich. It will fill India’s coffers. That is correct. It means Indians will become rich? That is not correct. Indians will become poor.

How much ever cars, motorbikes we produce it is afforded by only 25% of the urban population (Car is afforded by only 8% of urban population) & about 1% of rural population. Urban population is about 40% of India. That means the Car/Bike as a richness Indicator for which we go ‘Make in India’ will never be able to service more than 10% of India’s population. Rest will remain poor? That is correct. The sad thing they become poorer. They don’t just stay poor by Car/Bike indicator but poorer by clean water. Access to clean water, air, land which was so much in plenty in rural will become extremely dearer in their new dwelling in urban slums & apartments.

Simplifying further. One car will service one lucky family for 2-3 decades. For that multiple families have to be uprooted permanently from their ancestral villages.

Because, one car production is not just one Car production. But it is producing whole lot of iron, steel, aluminum, plastic, rubber, wood, electric power which means coal. All of which will displace families permanently from their ancestral forests, hills & river side villages.

USA Model: Consume but not Produce: What is good? What is bad?

In the US, industrialization rapidly happened during 18^th, 19^th century. Slavery happened. Then the citizen awareness grew. Equality and rights were fought for by the oppressed. Oppressors also heeded to the oppressed gradually. Today, we have one of the best examples of Citizen Liberty in that country.

The GE, Walmart stories will tell how exactly, the Americans have transformed from Industrial nation to only consumers & traders country today. Jack Welch of GE moved ground up from Plant Manager, Regional Manager to CEO. During his early tenures, he spent hell lot of money (law suits) and time fighting against citizen rights for clean water, air & land. When he became CEO, he vehemently pronounced China is a reality. We are going to offshore every damn unviable production to China. If it means closing down plants and joblessness so be it.

Walmart pushed consumerism to heights. Where a family needed just clothes, it sold double, triple it needed for less. We Sell For Less is their tag line. It demanded very high production from its vendors. Newyork, Chicago were industrial hubs producing clothes, could not sustain the demand. They looked offshore to supply in plenty. Now everything comes from Asia to America. Nothing gets produced there.

USA produces only WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction), Technology Innovations, IPs, Patents.

The basic needs like food & clothing is consumed so much that they cannot produce so much “Sustainably”. So they have offshored their basic needs production. Even basic food is imported. Is it good or bad?

So what transformed industrialized country to become only traders and consumers? Is it good or bad?

What lesson to take away for India? My lessons are:

-          Good lesson is we need to raise Citizen Awareness and support the rural when they fight for their basic rights, water, air & land

-          Bad lesson is not to go for converting basic needs into greed by raising & praising consumerism. Buy more, change more, eat more, wear more is very bad for the country

China Model: Produce at the cost of Individual Rights

China has become the producer of the world. Some of the basic things like safety pins, are no longer produced anywhere else in the world! It is raising its production so much at the cost of exploiting earth that it is finding fewer consumers now. So it is pushing mountain dwellers, tribals to urban jungles to become consumers! It is a baffling phenomenon! How long will this go? Where will this end? It will flood its cheap produce everywhere across the world. India used to be equal trade partner with China few decades ago. Now it has pushed India down so much that it will take centuries to recover. Similarly it will push its product across all countries.

So how is it able to produce so much? Is the earth so much rich there? Are the citizens not affected? What about water to produce so much?

Earth is rich everywhere. Every country can produce a lot by the land ratio. But Citizens will raise voice & protest. And usually, countries care for citizens. In China citizen voice is curbed. They got to do what they are told to do by the autocratic state. Even peaceful living citizens on mountains who ask for nothing from state are told to vacate and come to cities! Even state also doesn’t want their earth and land. But the state wants them to consume its produce. They cannot protest. Those who protest will be silently culled.  

What about water? China captured water rich Tibet. There are huge dams & canals built to carry across water to the main land from the Himalayan high lands very easily through gravity. When the citizen unrest will grow exceeding the current available water what will china do? Kashmir & Arunachal Pradesh is also water rich which will come to its use by next century if there is no resistance from India!

So what lessons for India?

-          Care for citizens; Don’t curb their rights to live

-          Strengthen security to secure its borders, states & its citizens

-          Increased Industrial production will not solve India’s hunger.

What is India’s Indigenous Model? Gandhiji’s Gram Swarajya is the Answer

India must look for producing locally for self-sufficiency in food and clothing needs. These needs should not be allowed to become greed. Industrialization of food production, packaged food production, large scale farming, industrialized farming, food security bill etc., should be curbed. Local food production & consumption should be encouraged. What is excess should be traded out. Producing only to trade out will make even growers go hungry. The mad chase to cash crops is driving farmers’ suicide.

Packaged food, tetra pack, stale juice factories should be discouraged. Consumers should accept packaged food become costly. Fresh farm items should become easy & cheap. Local food items according to the current seasons should be available in the market. Non season foods, imported ones should become unsustainably costly. China is ready to dump even milk down our throat.

Clothing also should become localized production. One Thirupur producing for entire world will get consumed only by the urban middleclass. It pushes excess clothes to only 25% population. It makes rest go clotheless. Cottage industries must be encouraged. Large industrial production should not be subsidized. The water taxation should be brought in appropriately for them or water should not be given to them so cheaply.

Make In India and sell anywhere else will make “production by very few people for consumption by very few people in lot of excess”. It will extract our earth then manufacture sucking away our water and sell the produce to very few people. It serves no purpose for largesse. It will fill India’s coffers with a lot of money. But it will make a large populace poorer of their basic needs.