Monday, May 19, 2008

Economic liberalisation irrepearable

In medieval era ,Mughal court occupied a prominent position.During Akbar's reign its position became even stronger.As a result this era was called as golden age of history.If we take a glimpse of the trodden time, then we will find that at that time economy was in full control of Indians.It was in its peak phase and was not influenced by other foreign economies. Every individual was satisfied and prosper.But when Jahangir came to power new developments took place. A foreign trader Tomos row(spelling may vary) stepped in India. He came with a motive of establishing trade relations.In his first interaction with Jahangir, he fell down on his feet to impress him.He also presented high quality wine and many precious gems.Impressed with his shrewd attitude , Jahangir awarded him the right to trade with India. In this way a new saga of trade with Britain commenced.To enhance trade relationships East India company was established which was a sign of their rising power. After the change in panorama , pressure started maintaining on India. It fell down like a pack of cards.India had unknowingly became a slave.Now Indians had lost their own control on their own possessions. The fate of India and Indians was now in the hands of the British premier, queen Elizabeth.Every word of her was the sole destiny of the Indians. Here we don't need to embody the effect of British rule on Indian politics,economy and culture. If we think today that in 250 years of slavery , Indians were merely economically exploited, then we might be partially correct. Beyond this exists a fact that Indians were polluted introspectively, and were transformed into a hypothetical Britisher.The most disastrous effect of British rule was the disintegration of India on the basis of religion , caste , race and regionally. At last the Britishers were forced to leave India but not before imprinting their own thoughts on every soul. Till today Indians think in English, this shows that we have lost our own homogeneous indigenous qualities. Our deep rooted culture , religion, Nationality has been already uprooted by the Britishers. They departed leaving their own thoughts in us.As a consequence of the actions of the past , today India is internally divided on the basis of caste , regionally and race.This is a real fact which we are not able to digest. At present we don't understand the meaning of true nationality.
Why this has happened?:- It started as a consequence of the actions of Jahangir. At that time he did not knew that generations to come will suffer due to his irrepearable decision.
Let's see one such suffering and the result..
In the year 1990-91 India was suffering from acute financial and economic problems. India's foreign reserve had slipped to a mere $1 billion and trade deficit had risen . The treasury could support only 7 to 8 month trade obligations. India was in an impasse . There was no other way to get out of this problem except keeping gold at stake ephemerally. At this time liberalisation supported our sinking economy. FII's got permission to invest 10% in a company's share.From 1992 there investment started prospering which helped in nurturing Indian growth story. The investment threshold kept on rising from budget to budget .In 2007 it touched cent percent mark in certain privileged sectors.
At present India's foreign reserve has rose to $300 billion (approximately) the pumping of money is still continuing. So in future due to these factors India will be forced to make rupee fully convertible.
Need :-To thwart India from external drift we had to support liberalisation in the past. But up to what extent was it correct? We increased the investment threshold. But in the wake of liberalisation, we forgot that we should be liberal only up to the point we need to strengthen our position . At that time we should have allowed investment in FDI route only and not in secondary market.
To obliterate British rule , mahatma Gandhi protested against various irrelevant means. He protested against the then mighty industrial good that was cloth. He persuaded every Indian to make their own cloth by the silent weapon charkha. The 18th century marked the genesis of industrial revolution. Its commencement had a very bad impact on hand loom industry. The revolution of steam engine and then power loom, totally revolutionised the world. It also contributed in economic well- being of the Britishers. But after mahatma Gandhi's decision the Britishers were forced to contemplate.
But in 1990-91 we again took refuge in the foreign shelter. We did not think about Mahatma Gandhi's simple path.We did not show any type of sacrifice during this period.We took a short cut path.We made liberalisation , our buzzword.Now we are ultimately dependant upon FII. Before India many countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico showed their faith in liberalisation. but hey suffered from economic crisis. At present also many analysts think liberalisation as a positive step.But in reality, they fear from analysing its consequence.
In future India is going to have an acute economic crisis. But this can take time.The cause behind this will be our wrong implication of liberalisation.

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