Every one should have a knowledge of history and economics .And of
course political science .Its all the more important in a country like India
which is a developing nation and needs to keep evolving all the time .It also
helps us to understand the difference between hype and fact .
We all went ga ga over Namo .Here was a man who promised us the
world .Here was a man who sold us a dream .Here was a man who could make you
angry ,laugh or cry .(He even managed to do that to hard headed politicians
like Ravi Shankar Prasad in his innaugral address to Parliament ).Was what he
promised all hype ?
After 4 months of his government being in office –I have no definite answer to the
above question .But it does seem that a lot of his precious mandate has so far
been wasted .Which party can you expect in the near future to come to power
with such a huge mandate ? As I hit my 60s I doubt wheter any party will in my lifetime .He needs to do something real
fast .What is he waiting for ? And what the hell is he doing by indulging in
these foreign policy tasks ? SAARCH ,BHUTAN ,JAPAN ,CHINA ,USA ,BANGKLADESH
,-what has it got to do with India at the moment .Infact it’s a shame that he
was talking to Xi when Chinese troops were sitting in our terrirory in the
Chumar Sector .And then signing on a paper which showed Arunachal as a disputed
territory .Can you imagine what would have happened if Man Mohan Singh would
have done that ? Narendra Modi
came to power by promising fast economic growth to create millions of jobs. So,
it’s mysterious that he has spent so much time on foreign visits and receiving
foreign dignitaries like Chinese president Xi Jinping. Foreign relations
matter, but cannot create millions of jobs .It is true that he signed MOUs with
the Chinese and the Japanese which ran into billions of dollars . Big foreign
investments make big headlines. Yet India itself has a savings rate of 30% of
GDP, and this once touched 37%. It is contributed mainly by households and
unincorporated businesses. Foreign direct investment in India is barely 1-2% of
GDP. This links India to global markets and technology, and so is disproportionately
useful.But it is not the crucial driver of growth . That has to be local
investment. Above all, it has to be investment by small and medium enterprises,
which already contribute more to investment and growth than large corporations.Modi
has not done anything as yet on that front .He may do it later –but better is
if he had started it earlier .Months will just eat into the years and we will
be back where we started .
And people may still be talking of
acche din –because they will fall to the hype and because they don’t understand
economics or history .However ,let me add one last line –he is still the best
bet we have as a PM .!!
Kulbhushan Kain
No comments:
Post a Comment