Resisting Market Changes in India

India has experienced a sporadic flurry of growth since its 1991 economic reforms, when the government deregulated the economy, privatized many sectors and opened up the country to greater foreign investment. Over the past 24 years, development indicators such as educational enrollment, child mortality, life expectancy and percentage of people living below the poverty line have consistently improved.

But these accomplishments belie India’s somber realities: The new economy has disproportionately benefited those who are already privileged. Even with great economic growth, an estimated 363 million in India still live in poverty, according to a 2014 report by the Indian Planning Commission.

“The system now pits human against human,” says Manam, arguing that capitalism reduces the world to competition and cruelty. “People should always be kind and loving to others. People should help one another, whether that person is family, a neighbor, friend, or complete stranger.”

“I do not like the Chicago School,” he volunteered to me recently, referring to the University of Chicago’s famously conservative economics department—the onetime intellectual home of Milton Friedman and birthplace for many of the economic theories that justify the World Bank’s and World Trade Organization’s structural reforms. “Globalization is just another word for Western hegemony,” Manam sighs.

Among those reforms was an agricultural policy that deregulated the Indian seed market and brought it under the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Seeds that Indian farmers had used their whole lives became the intellectual property of American corporations like Monsanto and Cargill, who collected royalties on their acquisitions and forced seed prices to skyrocket.

Manam’s family had to stop growing their own seeds, which they had normally replanted every year, and were forced to buy more expensive seeds, ones that had been genetically modified so that they could not be replanted in future seasons.

The family also had to switch from homemade fertilizer to a more expensive foreign brand. Nationwide, imported food products made cheap by heavy subsidies from Western countries flooded the market, driving the price down on the crops that Manam’s family sold.

“My input costs shot up from 4,000 to 15,000 rupees [$62 to $235],” remembers Manam’s brother Veeranjaneyu, who still works as a farmer. “The yield increased a little, but not nearly enough to cover the increase in input costs. And my crops sold for less money than before. I was forced to take out six lakhs [$9,412] in loans from private moneylenders. The loan has been a horrible burden on my life.”

For India’s farmers, the debt acquired in an effort to cope with the new trade rules has led to an epidemic of suicides in the countryside, which continues to this day. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in the past three years more than 3,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide.

Having watched American multinational corporations extract vast amounts of wealth from the Indian countryside, and having seen firsthand the squalor of the urban slums, Manam decided to dedicate his life to activism. “I knew then I wanted to work for the people,” he says.

Manam’s main task was to file a formal complaint to the police detailing the man’s death. Otherwise, he says, the company would have legal wiggle room to claim that the driver had not been on duty, leaving them largely off the hook in compensating his family. “The company has been abusing these workers,” Manam fumes. “They are only supposed to work one eight-hour shift per day. But the company often has them work three shifts straight.”

truthbetold wrote:CD 

you  make it sound as if Modi created a problem with in the last one year.

The truth is none of the govts since independence of india did much to benefit the extreme poor and deprived in India. When it comes to those forgotten parts and sections of India, congress or BJP makes no difference. The people living in drought prone , low rain fall, under irrigated areas of India (ex: Chattisgarh, Telangana, jharkhand, Rajasthan, parts of UP, MP, and Bihar) have not seen much of a benefit from Independent India. Add social backwardness to that.  That 30 or 40 percent of India did not make much of a progress.  It is as if those people are living in Africa. 

Modi did not create this problem nor is he going to do much to improve the situation. If these underserved people are brought into main economy through irrigation projects, education, and jobs,  poverty in the world would go down dramatically. This is a structural problem.  It is a very difficult problem.  So far indian politics showed any will or even inclination to tackle this problem.

Kayalvizhi wrote:"India's growth would have progressed better if it comprised its southern and western parts only...The rest of the country held the South and West back", so said P. Chidamparam, Minister of Finance, India (2004-2008)

http://www.tamiltribune.com/economy/index.html

truthbetold wrote:CD

The worst example of crony capitalism is under YSR, who ran the govt to make money for himself and his family using capitalist cronies. That is worse than Lalu prasad type of corruption (which is focused on taking a cut of govt schemes). 

What Modi or CN or MMS did was to move a lack luster Indian economy to move away from license raj of congress.  It succeeded in unleashing tremendous suppressed energies of Indian people pushing more people to more higher levels of living standards than ever before.

China was even more phenomenally successful than India. 

Globalization is instrumental in both these cases.  Yes. Globalization also allows some Indian markets to be open for western expansion.  Some groups have lost in this transformation.  But India and china gained significantly more than they lost.  secondly Indian govts could have minimized agony in farming community with pro farmer policies.  But they ignored them and in some cases paid a political price for such failures.

Globalization hurt working class in US and some groups in emerging nations.  But overall world economy benefited from  low labor cost, technology transfer to emerging markets,  larger middle class in emerging markets and prospects for poverty reduction in the coming decades. 

No body would invest anywhere without a benefit.  It is upto emerging markets to attract capital and use the growth to minimize any negative impact on its vulnerable groups.

confuzzled dude wrote:

truthbetold wrote:CD

The worst example of crony capitalism is under YSR, who ran the govt to make money for himself and his family using capitalist cronies. That is worse than Lalu prasad type of corruption (which is focused on taking a cut of govt schemes). 

What Modi or CN or MMS did was to move a lack luster Indian economy to move away from license raj of congress.  It succeeded in unleashing tremendous suppressed energies of Indian people pushing more people to more higher levels of living standards than ever before.

China was even more phenomenally successful than India. 

Globalization is instrumental in both these cases.  Yes. Globalization also allows some Indian markets to be open for western expansion.  Some groups have lost in this transformation.  But India and china gained significantly more than they lost.  secondly Indian govts could have minimized agony in farming community with pro farmer policies.  But they ignored them and in some cases paid a political price for such failures.

Globalization hurt working class in US and some groups in emerging nations.  But overall world economy benefited from  low labor cost, technology transfer to emerging markets,  larger middle class in emerging markets and prospects for poverty reduction in the coming decades. 

No body would invest anywhere without a benefit.  It is upto emerging markets to attract capital and use the growth to minimize any negative impact on its vulnerable groups.

You're basically regurgitating what Mr. Manam had said. In current situation India is paying the multinational companies twice, first in the form of purchasing seeds and fertilizers, secondly, by heavy subsidies. Speaking of crony capitalism, How did Adani became one of the richest in India, in such a short time, Did you conveniently forget that?

truthbetold wrote:CD

Unlike you I did not forget Gali janardhan reddy either. 

I empathize with Mr. Manam and his story.  I come from farming background.  But as world rolls along,  there are forces bigger than us.  You have to be alert (and sometimes lucky) to be not eaten alive by forces of change. 

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Just because you heard Adani's name only after Modi came to power does not mean he was a homeless pauper roaming the streets of Parel. He was a rich industrialist with scores of companies and industries long before Modi came to power.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:
Are you saying that Sonia made Ambanis rich?  You are losing your bearings - just saying. You STILL have not answered my long-time question - what is your alternative to BJP at this time?