‘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. 

The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen: A Critical Review

It is a book on Indian History, culture and identity by the Nobel Laureate  Amartya Sen. He is economist attempting history writing. People across the world and India read it, blog it, believe it, write about it, refer it in future books! It has potential disastrous implications as it has many errors and narrow views on Hinduism & its culture presented by the author. The title makes us proud and we expect lot of pride exhibited throughout the book for the argumentative culture ingrained in the Indian culture. And that making our democracy thrive by our inherent nature. Sadly there is whole lot of sheen taken away from the book by the author’s obsession on politics, linking it to Gujarat riots and dedicating much debate on it. Author finds himself very guilty of being Indian origin rather than exhibiting pride and enthusing the youth to embrace the golden culture that we have.

 Aryan Invasion Theory

A quote of a paragraph from the book:

"
Despite its quintessential ‘Indianness’ , there is a general understanding that, in an early form, Sanskrit came to India from abroad in the 2^nd millennium BCE, with the migration of Indo-Europeans, and then it developed further and flourished magnificently in India. It is also interesting to note that the greatest grammarian in Sanskrit, namely Panini, who systematized and transformed Sanskrit grammar and phonetics around the fourth century BCE, was of Afghan origin (he describes his village on the banks of river Kabul). These foreign connections have not diminished the pride of classically minded Indians in that great language, nor in the exceptional achievements of the literature ….
"

Sanskrit came to India? From Europe? That’s a construed writing of history.

Max Mueller, a German Scholar, has done enough damage by his elaborate work in the past dictating that Aryans invaded India from central Asia & Europe. During his later years he himself has casted doubts over this invasion theory. The British historians conveniently ignored those reservations. Their imperial mindset compelled them to keep the invasion theory intact to undermine the Indians self-confidence. In post-independence also we read this invasion theory in our text books. I believe now it is corrected.

Following are some of the objections on this invasion theory:

1.       Author writes elsewhere Ashoka of 3^rd century BCE had his kingdom till today’s Afghanistan. Author shows his ignorance of that of the culture of India was there till Iran on east and Malaya, Indonesia in west. Just because Panini was from today’s Afghanistan, Sanskrit according to the author becomes a foreigner’s language. He deliberately ignores Afghanistan was Gandhara kingdom earlier. And that is also mentioned elsewhere in the same book in some other context. If Sanskrit was in Pataliputra (today’s patna), Kalinga and south of vindhyas and spread all the way upto Hindu Kush mountain ranges in afghanistan, then it means it was centered in India spread wide east and west. If it was European language it would start spreading from there. There is no evidential trace of that in history.

 

2.       All the references in Vedas, Upanishads have relations to the geographical boundary of the Indian subcontinent. The great Ramayana and Mahabharatha are considered as Ithihasa (History). These are written by specific authors Valmiki and Vyasa later than the Vedas. The geographical references in these books are spread all over the Indian subcontinent. Shiva’s abode of Kailasa is well revered by the Hindus, is in the Himalayas. All over India from Himalayas to Lanka, the mountains, rivers, villages, kingdoms, names of the people, local language scripts, poems, prose, books are inspired and derive everything from these rich ancient scriptures. Later the temples are built for the respective gods. One fails to understand where Europeans immigrating or invading India comes in these references. Europeans civilizations also don’t have these geographical references. Nor our scriptures mention Andes, Danube or Volga or anything close to that. The weather, tropical living, flora fauna references found in these scriptures are all related to Indian Subcontinent. If intelligent Europeans migrated here then surely they would write some reference to their previous dwelling. Or did they become suddenly intelligent once they touched Indian soil? No reference to that also. Their culture also differs quite widely. We worship cow as Gomatha. They use it as beef.  

3.       There is a section of historians who write about reference to horses which are aliens to the Indian subcontinent in the Sanskrit scriptures. Amartya Sen also take support of these arguments. These arguments are defeated by the fact that the trade existed across borders.  And horses might have got traded across to India from central Asia. And there is no richness of these language or cultural traditions in those areas equaling the Indus civilization, although the evidences of Greek civilization dates further back. Also the European countries also had to depend upon central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan etc.,) for fine horses. And then domesticate and grow further.  

4.       Even today, the philosophical depth found in India is unparalleled in the west. There is a vast difference in the culture of assimilation of diversity in India and the separatism & exclusivity expounded by the western cultures. There is no archeological evidence of invasion, nor there any cultural similarities.

Muslim Assimilation In India’s Culture

The author in his desperate attempt to appease the Muslim invaders & settlers in India, ends up criticizing today’s Hindus unnecessarily. Cultural assimilation attempts made by Akbar take great precedence in the book. No problem with that. Because Akbar, being a Muslim ruler and educated in Islam, still makes sincere attempts to assimilate the diversity purely based on reasoning.  No other Muslim ruler comes ever closer to that kind of tolerance for the divergence in the society. Every Muslim ruler either attacked the other religions places of worship or tried to convert the people and places of worship to Islam. In the book here, author says, there were some sporadic incidents like this from some Muslim rulers. Stating Aurangazeb, being the only least tolerant of the Muslim rulers, he takes on the todays Hindu’s discriminating and attacking Muslims.

Firstly, obviously the author has least knowledge or has shown deliberate ignorance about the Indian history and the Muslim rulers of the Moghuls, Bahmani sultanate, Tipu Sultan running a riot of faith conversions and destructions of temples of indigenous cultures.  

Secondly, in today’s India, the intolerance and separatism espoused by the Muslims is only increasing and creating pockets of Pakistan across India. In every riot, the instigators are Muslims. From their own community a prophet or a fakir has to emerge out to preach a sense of love towards other humans, throw their fears, and assimilate in the society. In fact several such fakirs came in their community at least in large numbers in India. Like Santha Shishunala Sharifa in Northern Karnataka came in the late 19^th century CE, and preached Allah and Allama are all same. But he got ousted from the inner learned circles of Islam and mosques. But the people at large across Hindus, Muslims respected and even today he is revered. Same is the case with Shirdi Sai Baba and several other such great saints across India.  

The belief that Mohammed is the last prophet and no one else can be prophet is retrograde. The social change is necessary in every region and every generation. There is constant cycle of evil overtaking good; and good then emerging through, creating a higher influence in the society. But both have a time and region context.

The scriptures guiding the Islam are never allowed to change. There is no debate. There is no reasoning allowed. Akbar himself initiated a religion Din-I-Lahi based on reasoning. But where is it now? The Sufi-ism which gave raise to some of the fine songs, music and love for humanity is out of the doors of the staunch Isalm. There is fatwa on Singing and dancing. Where comes love & tolerance then?

It should be noted that the Akbar’s attempts of assimilation of different cultures was the result of his open mindedness towards India’s diversity and positively influenced by it. And not that Akbar influenced India to be tolerant & argumentative. Similarly, Aurangazeb’s intolerance towards other religions was due to his Isalmic education and not due to his exposure to India’s multi-culture.

We must take pride in our culture creating positive influence on foreign invaders than trying to pacify Muslims by stating their rule was tolerant. It will be a lie.

Instead, we must look critically at why Muslim rule was intolerant and why are they espousing separatism even today. And why our politicians should not keep their culture on sale for votes. And debate it openly involving them amicably and asking for changing their stance for the good of the country, good of humanity. People are people, simple and moldable. The prophets, mullahs are intelligent, powerful influencers on people, should mold them in the right way. Create a tolerant community towards diversity and respect the India’s culture of argumentation and debate based on logic and reasoning. Author here doesn’t even delve this problem and solution area in such an interesting titled book. Honestly the title is such apt for a glorious cultural India. But the content is very disappointing and demoralizing for an Indian.

Obsession with Akbar

Here is another narrow view from the author quoted:

"
For India in particular, the tradition of secularism can be traced to the trend of tolerant and pluralist thinking that had begun to take root well before Akbar, …. But that tradition got its firmest official backing from Emperor Akbar himself. He also practiced as he preached – abolishing discriminatory taxes imposed earlier on non-muslims, …
"

Begun to take root? Firmest official backing? What is official? Is it only if it is from a pan India emperor? Obviously Amartya has only read Akbar and is obsessed with him. If other “official” rulers, kings, maharajas spread across India for many thousand years were not tolerant, plural there wouldn’t have been such a large canvas of culture, language, songs, music, dance forms, architecture, and many other human arts. The major philosophies like Advaitha, Vishishtadwaita, Dwaita flourished through debates, reasoning, interpretations of the vedas. These happened under the patronage of many kings in their courts across India. One simple example: Hoysala raja Bittideva was a Jain king of 11^th century became disciple of Ramanujacharya and became vaishnavaite, not at the point of sword edge, but through reasoning and understanding. He never destroyed Jain temples. Nor his successors did that. His wife, most revered in Karnataka for her dancing grace, Shantala, remained a devout Jain. Later Hoysala kingdom got destroyed and temples attacked by the Foreign Mohammedan invaders.

“abolishing discriminatory taxes imposed earlier on non-muslims”. Before Akbar there were about half a dozen Moghul rulers. That means here Amartya himself admits, that all of them supported imposing taxes on non-Muslims. After him, Aurangazeb brings back the pilgrimage taxation etc., That means Akbar is the only exception to discrimination culture of the Muslim rulers. And not as author keeps repeating that it was sporadic incidents of discrimination by the Muslim rulers. There are several incidents of Akbar being discriminatory against non-Muslims. But still, being a born Muslim and educated in Islam, I must admit he is a brave man to have taken such radical steps away from that religion’s dictate and managing the wrath of his advisors. May be that’s why ultimately he was overthrown by the faithful Islamist Aurangazeb.  

 India - China

India-China is a chapter I liked. Because we have in them, a comparison between a large thriving democracy and a large flexing economic superpower which is non-democratic next door. There are 2 types of statistical data generally studied in economics.

1.       Index of richness of a country are generally GDP, GNP. This will generally be due to the wealth generated and concentrated by few.

2.       Others indicate the disparity between the Haves and Have nots. For example, the literacy rate, women literacy, Life expectancy, Infant mortality rate, Gender ratio etc., because these are overall population literacy & health indicators. The population health and literacy is the real richness of a country. It automatically maintains even ecological richness.

In both these parameters China is ahead of India. But the interesting part is the progress made since economic reforms. The China and most other Asian countries like Taiwan, Korea initiated their reforms in the 80s. India initiated the reforms big time from ‘92 onwards. The improvement in the 2^nd set of parameters above by China during the reforms years is marginal. And in contrast India’s improvement is significant and is catching up overall and in several states better than China’s. And that largely is credited to the participative democracy. And also the author credits India for having No Famine in post Independent India as against China having seen famine in as late as 1960’s in communist china, perishing some 30+ million lives. In British India, we experienced Bengal Famine of 1940’s causing some 2 million deaths due to starvation and diseases.

And during NDA regime, India’s stats in the first indices soared high. But it lost the elections subsequently. Amartya doesn’t leave the opportunity to criticize the NDA regime along with connecting the reason for loss to the Gujarat riots. In any case, it would be good for the country if BJP leaders listen to the Sangh parivar’s socialist economic policy suggestions for the future.

In many South Indian temple sculptures I have visited, the local guides proudly present some of the Chinese visitors sculpted. Fa-Hian and Huen-Tsang are 2 of many such Chinese scholars who visited India during 4^th and 7^th century respectively. Interestingly they studied and held high positions in Nalanda for decade long. And what they carried back to their country apart from the philosophy & science is the implementation methodology of health care services in India.

The first dated printed book is a Chinese book of translation of a Sanskrit treatise. So the invention of printing technology is credited to China. But author argues that, Huen-Tsang carried Buddhist printed books to china from India. The printing technology has played significant role in public communication, literacy and schooling. But unfortunately, India lost many technologies, literature, research during the Nalanda destruction by the foreign invaders. 

I have here tried to put my views on the book taking contradictions within the book itself as much as possible. But history is very large and that too India’s is immense. We expect a lot from a book so aptly titled to describe the debate and argumentation based culture in India. The book in that aspect disappoints big time limiting only to Akbar, Tagore-Gandhi arguments and that’s it. Gandhian Charaka movement is jeered by Amartya in this book. Being an economist, that too an expert on famines, how his views are dismissive of Human Labour Oriented Cottage Industries and appreciative of Productivity based Industries? Is Nobel also rigged? In favor of Productivity based industries & economics?