C-Grade
By -Pamarty Venkataramana
Advanced lands are A-grade. Backward ones hold the B-grade. C-grade ?
China grade stands apart. Ever since it’s fiscal engineering policies took flower, this most populous country of Asia has engulfed the economic and political scenarios of the whole world, starting from Americas to down under in Australia.
India has been no exception. Cheap goods and thinking low on quality with ‘economy’ and ‘savings on pricing’ snatched away the sanity of minds seeking quality assurance.
C-grade tricks of marketing by enlisting support of ‘local’ bigwigs of media, marketing and in the bureaucratic circles lent great advantage to slimy ‘entrepreneurs’ from a mass of land where English was as foreign a language as any other.
There was neither accountability not a fear of reprisal on account of its widespread reputation of being an ‘iron curtain’ and a ‘red-for-dangerous’ land.
Both press freedom and liberty of courts are absent in land of the C-grade.
Mass production was its mantra. Cheap goods and ghost-towns became complementary to each other. Those who have visited large factories at work in China 🇨🇳 towns regale you with tales of ants-like precision, discipline and thousands of workers acting undisturbed and in tandem with Authoritarian orders!
What strikes us in India 🇮🇳 as remarkably eerie in the ghastly pandemic and consequent ‘total lockdown’ is a shift from being a ‘free-for-all’ melee of unequal society to becoming a C-grade cauldron of ‘community-tensions’.
How?
Both lifestyle and fear of reprisal have attested to the fact. Being closeted by fear and embraced by euphoria of safety and happiness as well as the additional factor of khaki-clad Yamadoot log enforcing democratic orderly life if you step outdoors, have highlighted the reason why the Constitution has clearly defined well laid out norms (circumstances) ONLY under which a ‘state of emergency’ may be declared.
A C-grade democracy is also one that endures a emergency without a ‘state of emergency’ actually being officially declared by the Government in power.
It is a C-grade society not because it has clamped a ‘total lockdown’ in fear of safety of its population that doubles up in ‘normal times’ as ‘coolies’ for the Western, Gulf or Oriental world (call centres, scavenging,
C-grade indulgence is also witnessed by effulgence of shaded ‘prompt tax-refunds’ and ‘TDS-rate reduction’ and ‘bailout packages’ deemed to revive an economy that was branded as ‘being-on-ventilator’ well before the pandemic struck the entire world economy.
There have been a surfeit of counter-productive moves such as raising limit of FDI participation in crucial sectors as atomic energy & defence production as also letting private players like a once Munshi-now Supreme Industrialist Monopolist foray into desi Coal and ‘private’ Airfields sectors.
All talk of ‘climate control’,’ solar alliance’ and ‘alternative energy’ has gone for a toss.
If a ‘dumb’ predecessor PM had sold away the national interests of India by surreptitiously signing a pact with Big Brother Sam even as whole India was literally sleeping, the ‘People’s PM’ seems to have gone one step away by getting ‘local’ to include and draw upon firangi-leeches sucking blood of all Indians and we yet, feel ‘at home’!
As ominous is the fact that India is chest-beating about PPE-manufacturing post-Covid19 but is succumbing to habit of heaping praise ‘ventilators’ donated by those to whom India gifts ‘Malaria tablets’ in bulk! Why is there no specific allocation to encourage manufacturing of ‘ventilators’ in India? Are these like ‘commercial aircraft’ and ‘spaceships’ only to made by USA 🇺🇸, Russia 🇷🇺 or China 🇨🇳?
This mentality of servility of leaderships with no sense of national-pride or political vision courage to let India turn self-sufficient in trying to rebuild through resilience of industrial production for national consumption but to cater to ‘friends abroad’ reeks of yet another sinister plan to turn both foreign diplomacy and national spirit get demoralised.
Import-substitution is need of the hour.
A sound economic-recovery rests more upon capitalisation of existing local resources than letting foreign capital investment route hijack power centres of India.
An urgent re-think by both the Government of the day and those of us absolutely supporting the eager beaver but inexperienced Government structures becomes essential.
The need of the hour is not to appease minority (local or foreign) stakeholders of the economy but to re-design India’s economic polices. Public economics does not bow to ‘media-tigers’ or populist announcements.
Without much ado, more than welcoming FDI in the most sensitive domains of Space research, Atomic energy and Defence Production, India ought to welcome dollar-deposits in our country (by foreigners) at a nominally higher interest rate. Watch the inflow spiral even as PIOs and NRIs are staging a ‘ghar-wapasi’ ! Goras would follow suit. Chinkis would stay restricted to their Shangri La !!
Help!
Let not side-pocketing or outright imposition of wrong policies turn Indian economy into yet another round of circus show.
C-grade means just that : a circus-grade.
Not the Chinese grade.
The latter is definite, certain and prospering.
The former would deprive hard-working Indian labourers and industrialists alike,to get enslaved further and relegate India into becoming a D-grade (Destruction mode) economy.
This is an honest submission of one aware of inside-functioning and impacts of public policy on India and this note is definitely not meant to sound a criticism of the well-meaning efforts of our beloved leaderships.
Satyamewa Jatatey! Shrama eva jayatey! Jai Hind!
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A-Grade article… Will C-Grade leadership read it? Let up hope for the best.