I am baffled. At work, I articulate and represent an India that is taking leadership positions in the technology world. Indeed, I run that spiel with my clients everyday. Innovation hub, highly qualified engineering talent, strong legal and institutional and social framework and a supporting political establishment. The message to the “client” is, that this is a growth story that will go on….and on and on.
I come back home and switch on NDTV and I see gruesome black bags of bones surgically separated from 3-12 year old bodies by an ex-Stephanian and his servant. The police and the NGO’s did a fig about reported violations from the accused. Then I read about the killing of a person who stole a hammer from a scrap shop. The man was desperate to save his one kidneyed daughters life. After beating him up in a gruesome manner, the scrap shop dealer and his colleagues raped the mans wife brutally, came back and killed him. I switch to other channels and they are still showing those plastic bags, another set of bones were found. Then there are struggles related to massive farm land acquisition under the guise of SEZs. Industry making inroads into rural India? Or is India Inc. up for sale?
Why do I have this sinking feeling in my heart despite all the “India Poised” sloganeering. One would ask, what have these isolated crime incidents got to do with the India growth story? Dig deeper and you will find that rural India is paying a heavy price for sustaining our in-equitable foreign investments and billings funded growth story. The so called India urban growth story has built a whole unorganized cartel of service providers who need to build up the growth story, to assure the urban consumers that all is well and will continue to be well into the future. Builders turned property Don’s, Industrialists turned Retail chain shahenshah's, Power Brokers turned Politicians and vice versa and right at the bottom of the food chain is the hapless urban consumer, whose only job is to spend, spend and spend, to sustain this ecosystem. And as long as the dollar billings happen, youngsters will get jobs, they would want to buy homes, they would want to party well and eat well. Where does this ecosystem encroach upon, then? The great rural landscape of India. The rural India that is already crumbling at the impact of urban transformation. The young men in villages have long migrated to cities. Agricultural yields are on a down ward spiral. Debt’s are heavy, leading to suicides that invariably leave families with kids and women to bear the burden of survival for the rest of their lives. To this environment walks in our cartel, armed with ready made growth plans, projects, FII's and a promise of eternal prosperity. State Government conveniently looks the other way, as it lets the farmer negotiate with the corporate, the sale of his agricultural land. That is be some equitable negotiation, isn't it? The average farmer does not know mutual funds, not does he have a financial consultant to advice him how to spend his new found fortune. He takes up the modest way to the local toddy shop and drowns his troubles there. When the money is over, he hits the cities, doing odd jobs, or simply ends his life. This could be an illusory account, but as we all know, not far from truth.
Yes, India is poised, for me, because i can get impossible salaries simply because others are getting it (hope my employer is not reading this post). India is poised for me because I can buy a new apartment every 10 years and change my car every 5 years. India is poised for me, because I can take my family for a vacation abroad. India is poised for me because I have the liberty to ideate, think about the future and keep this blog updated (sic!). But guess what, the “India Poised” story does not just end with me.
Parents from Nithari Village who have lost their children, wife of the scrap worker, the nameless debt ridden farmer who is contemplating the noose in Nagpur, the clueless land owner who is negotiating his SEZ designated land holding with a snazzy corporate babu, the tsunami effected family where the woman has to sell off her kidney to keep the home fires burning. India is all but “poised” for them after all; the only difference is that they do not have wings to fly, and they have to take the leap with me.
I come back home and switch on NDTV and I see gruesome black bags of bones surgically separated from 3-12 year old bodies by an ex-Stephanian and his servant. The police and the NGO’s did a fig about reported violations from the accused. Then I read about the killing of a person who stole a hammer from a scrap shop. The man was desperate to save his one kidneyed daughters life. After beating him up in a gruesome manner, the scrap shop dealer and his colleagues raped the mans wife brutally, came back and killed him. I switch to other channels and they are still showing those plastic bags, another set of bones were found. Then there are struggles related to massive farm land acquisition under the guise of SEZs. Industry making inroads into rural India? Or is India Inc. up for sale?
Why do I have this sinking feeling in my heart despite all the “India Poised” sloganeering. One would ask, what have these isolated crime incidents got to do with the India growth story? Dig deeper and you will find that rural India is paying a heavy price for sustaining our in-equitable foreign investments and billings funded growth story. The so called India urban growth story has built a whole unorganized cartel of service providers who need to build up the growth story, to assure the urban consumers that all is well and will continue to be well into the future. Builders turned property Don’s, Industrialists turned Retail chain shahenshah's, Power Brokers turned Politicians and vice versa and right at the bottom of the food chain is the hapless urban consumer, whose only job is to spend, spend and spend, to sustain this ecosystem. And as long as the dollar billings happen, youngsters will get jobs, they would want to buy homes, they would want to party well and eat well. Where does this ecosystem encroach upon, then? The great rural landscape of India. The rural India that is already crumbling at the impact of urban transformation. The young men in villages have long migrated to cities. Agricultural yields are on a down ward spiral. Debt’s are heavy, leading to suicides that invariably leave families with kids and women to bear the burden of survival for the rest of their lives. To this environment walks in our cartel, armed with ready made growth plans, projects, FII's and a promise of eternal prosperity. State Government conveniently looks the other way, as it lets the farmer negotiate with the corporate, the sale of his agricultural land. That is be some equitable negotiation, isn't it? The average farmer does not know mutual funds, not does he have a financial consultant to advice him how to spend his new found fortune. He takes up the modest way to the local toddy shop and drowns his troubles there. When the money is over, he hits the cities, doing odd jobs, or simply ends his life. This could be an illusory account, but as we all know, not far from truth.
Yes, India is poised, for me, because i can get impossible salaries simply because others are getting it (hope my employer is not reading this post). India is poised for me because I can buy a new apartment every 10 years and change my car every 5 years. India is poised for me, because I can take my family for a vacation abroad. India is poised for me because I have the liberty to ideate, think about the future and keep this blog updated (sic!). But guess what, the “India Poised” story does not just end with me.
Parents from Nithari Village who have lost their children, wife of the scrap worker, the nameless debt ridden farmer who is contemplating the noose in Nagpur, the clueless land owner who is negotiating his SEZ designated land holding with a snazzy corporate babu, the tsunami effected family where the woman has to sell off her kidney to keep the home fires burning. India is all but “poised” for them after all; the only difference is that they do not have wings to fly, and they have to take the leap with me.
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2 comments:
Mahathma Gandhi once said, "India lives in its villages." He was absolutely right, considering the fact that less than 10% of the indian polulation only lives in cities. Now,a the economic machinery is being controlled by or run by those 10 "Citiwallas" who somewhat totally detached from the reality, like living and thinking in a bubble" and never recognize that rural people or people living outside the cities have any role in the development of the Indian economy.
India wide opened its boarders for intl. investments, but it has not done much to protect the rural folks or their way of life. Guess what intl. investors did, "they just came in loaded with cash and desparately found a local dinosaur desi industrialist(something that should have been disappeared for the face of this planet) and started to build their empires. Indian license Raj gate keepers gave the entire india, and its populations' needs, in a golden plate to these desi industrialists as soon as it received its independence and closed all boarders, i.e. imposed heavy duties for foreign made products. This measure was to protect desi industries, but what did these desi industrialists do? They keep on amassing wealth in humangous proportions without any fear of challenges from outside. Tatas, Birlas, and Ambanis thus borned. Remember, outside cannot come into india due to its license raj policies. And what indians get? Sub-quality products like Ambassador Cars, Enfield Motor Bikes (its parent company has long disappeared), Horlicks for which Indians still pay a handsome licence fee even after 125 years of its first introductions. The list goes on...
Industries have to be challenged to outsmart competition and to bring in newer and advanced products. Since the boarders were closed and nothing was allowed to come in to challenge the local industries, it has been field day for local inefficient industries and their products. Now, govt. has slowly opened its doors, and the foreigners are allowed to get into partnership with local inefficient industries / industrialists, the whole expercise is going to be counter pruductive. If the local industries were not allowed to get into any kind of partnership with any foreign companies, the foreign companies would have been forced to build their own factories and distribution channels and thus it would have created a direct challenge to local industries and the local industries would have been no choice other than to improve the quality of their products and find innovative way of doing businesses and win consumers' hearts. Well, nothing is going to happen!!
Now, Ambanis are allowed to open WalMart-style supermarkets all across India. Has anyone thought about the economic impacts of opening such large box style supermarkets or departments stores that sell even vegetables?? I doubt..Now, down the road, Ambanis will dictate what kind of prices the farmers get for his vegetables..Are you seeing an emerging picture of monopoly? Why do Indians need Monsanto to supply seeds for its farmers? If Monsanto could get hold of the food basket of one billion Indians, who are going to be the winners? Why do Indians need a rubber board if it is filled with tyre factors owners? They are more like a lobby group and rubber producers interests are going to be the least in their priority list. This is what happens to various spice boards too..They recommend imports of such basic products as rubber, and other spices, year after year, only to break the income potential of indian farmers. They do not mind spending valuable foreign exchange by importing palm oil and rubber and cashews, but they do object paying a higher prices for local farmers!! Just think who is infact the real dinosars and real stumbling blocks that pull the progress of the nation and its majority villages and villages?
Are you seeing a vested interest in not educating or not providing enough infrastructure such as schools and colleges to villagers(unfortunately majority of indians live in Villages)? Well, if they have the same facilities, they will get educated, and educated people always have choices and they start to think, and then, they will start questioning some of the govt. policies!! and the result could be burying these so called tycoons deep in the arabian oceans.
With over 5% inflation, I don't think any salary-earning individual or household will be safe financially in the long run. I don't think India is poised for anyone except for those tycoons who can increase their prices as they wish!! Unless the govt. invest substantial amounts in rural human capital and for its growth, most of the claims are just hot air balloons!! 10%cannot advance very far by depriving 90% basic rights and without their improvements..
great post. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did anyone hear that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.
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