Lectures delivered at SJM Southern states Vichar VARGA Inaugural Function on 9th August 2014 (2439 words)
1. On behalf of SJM and organisers here I welcome you all to this Southern Zonal Vichar varga in Ernakulam, a place of much historical and economic importance. All of you have come here with a hope that in these two days you will understand 'something' but certainly "some of the things" which are ailing our country. Some things have become viral like GM crops and FDI in insurance, defence and Railways, and this PPP model. We may want to know what actually words like 'Development' and 'growth' actually mean - two words which have found a mention at least 55 and 15 times respectively in this year's budget speech. I think those who will listen calmly, patiently and proactively will definitely be benefitted proportionately. . John Pope once said may not apply any of you.
Some to the Church repair,
Not for the prayer but the music there!
2. Bird eye view OF SJM..
SJM was started on 22 November 1991 by Sh. Dattopant Thengadi in Nagpur. Why? To fight back the neo-imperialism unleashed by Dunkel Proposals, which turned into World Trade Organisation. We were very much skeptic about the intentions of this new economic shackles in the name of Globalisation.
*They were saying these are new reforms, we said these are ways to deform, they called it Liberalisation, we called it is recolonisation.
They named it as Globalisation we labelled it as Hegemonization.
They eulogised it as Privatisation, and PPP Public Private Partnership..we denounced it as Promise Postpone and Perish. Or it is a nickname of LOOTof PUBLIC PROPERTY BY PRIVATES.
Time has proved us right. In 22 years we did things which we found justified, they only justified what they did. The LPG model has done more harm than good to the world. Moreover, American meltdown no body predicted but Thengadi ji calculated it 20 years back. Moreover,
shift from Globalisation to GLOBAL WARMING nobody imagined but which we predicted long ago. We were saying that this race for technology or QUALITY WILL LEAD TO WORLD-WIDE INEQUALITY.
But we were not silent soothsayers for all these years, we were protesting all these symbols of Neocolonialism by tooth and nail, by Facebook and email. Persistently and without fail! yes, S of Swadeshi signifies S4. Our struggle in seminars, streets, Supreme Court and Sansad.
We fought successfully the bigest corporate of the time Enron, and it is now in the dustbin of history. We fought against WTOs absence of level play field and every time in it's meeting SJM participated to register our protest. We struggled hard for iodine salt, fishermen issues, farmers issues in BT brinjal and GM crops case, FDI in multi brand Retail issue. We participated in the Plachimada villagers fight against coca cola in Kerala, Aranmula again in Kerala, Endosulfan ban case in Kerala and Punjab. We were against Vedanta University Land acquisition case in Odisha, Ski village issue in Himachal Pradesh and were with turmeric growing farmers in AP, and small and medium entrepreneurs everywhere. The tremors of our agitation against China's onslaught on Market and Border were felt everywhere. Conclusion is, we fought valiantly without any care for success or failure.
UNDER THE BLUDGEONING OF TIME,
OUR HEAD IS BLEEDING BUT UNBOWED!!
3. Fight AGAINST INEQUALITY .. BOOK CALLED CAPITAL IN 21st CENTURY.
Let us catch the thread from the issue of inequality. I am tempted to ask you a simple question - have you heard the name of the latest Best Seller Book of the world in economics - CAPITAL IN THE 21st CENTURY? The name of the writer is THOMAS PIKETTY, a 42 year old French writer. It is not the reason I am telling you about the book that it sold 2 lakh copies in a short span of time, not because Economics books rarely become popular but it has become viral amongst general readers, not because Piketty's name was googled a hundred thousand times in a week, of course not at all. I am telling you that he has proved our conclusions in his 700 page book with empirical evidences of 30 countries that :
A) that wealthy are becoming wealthier and the rest are struggling to make their both ends meet,
B) that actual wages in Britain are lower by 15% than those in 1991,
C) that 21st-century capitalism is on a one-way journey towards inequality – unless we do something.
D)what is his answer? Piketty's call for a "confiscatory" global tax on inherited wealth. He calls for an 80% tax on incomes above $500,000 ( five lakh dollars) a year in the US.
But the finest Book Review I have come across was by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman who epitomises in The New York Times in words " the book will change the way we think about our society and we do economics!" Oh yes! Gurumurthy used to say that not only economy but Economics is to be changed!
Let us have a look at KOFI ANNAN'S Astonishing Facts on inequality around the world: Remember that out of the hundred big economies of the world, 51 are corporates and 49 are countries! The richest fifth of the world's people consumes 86 percent of all goods and services while the poorest fifth consumes just 1.3 percent. Indeed, the richest fifth consumes 45 percent of all meat and fish, 58 percent of all energy used and 84 percent of all paper, has 74 percent of all telephone lines and owns 87 percent of all vehicles!!
The three richest people in the world have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries!!!
But The average African household today consumes 20 percent less than it did 25 years ago. The world's 225 richest individuals, of whom 60 are Americans with total assets of $311 billion, have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion -- equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 percent of the entire world's population
Let us come again to our motherland. International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that then net worth of India's billionaire community has soared not two time, three, four time but TWELVE TIME in the last 15 years. Second thing she said was this money, this twelve time enhanced money, is enough to eliminate absolute poverty in the country not once but twice over. She was not talking about India only but also about the skewed development of the world also. Seven out of ten people in the world today live in countries where inequality has increased over the past three decades, she said while delivering the Richard Dimbleby Lecture in London on 2nd February 2014, according to the copy of the speech made available by the IMF. One more startling fact !The richest 85 people in the world own the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the world's population, Lagarde said.
In the US, inequality is back to where it was before the Great Depression, and the richest 1 per cent captured 95 per cent of all income gains since 2009, while the bottom 90 per cent got poorer, Lagarde said, ruing that in the past, economists have underestimated the importance of inequality.
AMRITYA SEN and Jean Dreze in their book published last year in August 2013, 'India and it's Contradictions' revealed that India’s shining cupola is perched on a dilapidated chassis, crushing those who fall under its wheels. From one angle, it appears to be conquering the world. From another, it is rolling steadily towards the edge of a cliff. Its shockingly unequal patterns of development, say Drèze and Sen, are “making the country look more and more like islands of California in a sea of sub-Saharan Africa”. 100 millions our of total have not got advantages of this prosperity. In some cases, they seem to be in reverse: “The history of world development offers few other examples, if any, of an economy growing so fast for so long with such limited results in terms of reducing human deprivations. An important data that rich industrialists' total loans which have not been returned from the very beginning upto 2013 amount to 12 lakh crores of rupees. If the dead loans by billionaires have some connection with 12 times increase in their total assets of Indian corporates?
In this duration we recall with horror that more than 2 lakh and 80 thousand poor farmers committed suicide unable to pay the loans. We were happy to listen to the announcement of Shree Modiji that the first right on the assets of our nation is of the poorest of the poor! We were happy that this new Government imposed a big fine on Anil Ambani for creating artificial shortage of fuel gas.
1. TRF ISSUE IN WTO : We were again happy to listen good news from the recent WTO meet in Geneva. India's poor's voice was heard in the din of corporates' cacophony. developed nations were concerned about their trade facilitation agreement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi l told the visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry and "emphasised the need for developed countries to understand the challenges of poverty in developing countries and their governments' responsibilities in addressing them, when discussions take place in international forums", the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement after the meeting.
2. BRICS MEET : we were very happy to see the Brics conclave that our country was there on equal footing. Equal share was given by India to start a new bank and were happy that one Indian will head this new international Bank. In contrast to Brettenwood sisters World Bank and IMF where CEOs were always from developed countries.
3. NEIGHBOURHOOD RESPECTED.Third big achievement was made at the time of oath taking ceremeony by new NDA government where heads pf SARC countries were invited. Again visit of Modiji to Bhutan and Nepal are historic. China has created a string of pearls against us and developed economic relations and pacts with neighbouring countries. we have seven neighbours but China has created animosity of them with us, But China has 14 neighbours and why should we not create friendship with them and give a befitting answer to China. when our PM was declaring a concession loan of $ 1 billion to Nepal. Oh! India has changed symbolically from beggar's bowl to a donnar's hand. India encouraged Nepal to produce more herbal medicines. You know that india has become the No, 1 user of the alloepathic antibiotics in the world, surpassing China and Amereica. If herbal medicines are coming to Inidia it will be a transformation in health care. The HIT formula given by Sh, Modi will not only be unto Highways, Information Technology and Transmission lines for electricity, it will hit the pharmaceutical industry world over and switchover to Ayurveda.
4. RUPAY: RuPay was dedicated to the nation on May 8, 2014 by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee. It sppeared a small event at that time. We have started our own RuPay which will break the monopoly of Masters and Visa in the ATM markets. The State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank started issuing RuPay cards three months back and has realised the benefits of it.
In India, 90 per cent of credit card transactions are domestic; however, the cost of transactions is high due to monopoly of foreign gateways like Visa and Master cards. RuPay global card is now accepted at ‘Discover Global Payment Network’ internationally. several other things happened for the common man. He can attest his document himself, environmental officers loot of unnecessary checking the factories have been avoided, and much encouragement is given in the Para 102 of the budget to encourage the growth engine of our economy namely small and medium enterprises. Farmers have not only been protected in WTO meet but also in Budget too in various ways. But there are certain things which are beyond comprehension. Let us come to that which are bitter but better.
THE THINGS TO BE AVOIDED..
1. FDI IN MULTIBRAND RETAIL BE SCRAPPED. Rajasthan's new government, as soon as it took over the charge, immediately scrapped the permission the previous congress Goverment had given to FDI in multi brand retail, and the same was done by AAP Govt. In Delhi. But we are waiting for some initiative from Central government.
2. Similarly at the time of budget declaration, FDI in defence and Insurance was raised from 26 per cent to 49 per cent. we consider it is a totally unnecessary exercise. No transfer of technology is going to take place to what ever level we may raise the cap. Whatever we achieved in science or technology was achieved by over own indigenous ways developed by our scientists, Whether cryogenic engine or super computers, and atomic explosion included in the list, were achieved by our own scientists without aping others technology, Ultimately it is the government of the corporate country which is to decide about providing permission for transfer of high end or state of art technology or not to the other country. Sorry to say, usually they don't grant permission. Similarly the over dependence on PPP model won't lead us anywhere. Government should not escape from it's duties while proving basic services and amenities to the public. Issues like proving water and health must not be left at the mercy of of some private service providers. It is simply a loot of Public Poverty by privates. GM crops are the other issue which should not be decided by the agents of multinational Monsanto and Aventice. Once the permission for field trials is given, it is irreversible.
India should progress in a novel way, tread the untrodden paths. India has the heritage of peers and seers who showed the way to the world. It is the golden jubilee of an ideology of Pandit Deen Dayal ji with the name of Integral Humanism, it should usher in an era of peace and prosperity not only for India but for all the Globe. So new paradigms should be started of sustainable growth and real development, Ganga is a symbol of environmental care. While of mother World is to be nursed and looked after likewise.
KASHMIRI LAL,kashmirilalkamail@gmail.com,
9868271424, Shiv Shakti Mandir, RK Puram, New Delhi- 110022
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