India is facing many crises today. One of the crises is that most of the great Indian companies are either being shutdown or being sold out to foreign firms. And it is not about profitability of business or value creation. Even innovative companies get sold and stakes in even large profitable companies get sold. The problem is serious and reflective of the problems our "economy" is facing. Be it Flipkart which got sold, or all Anil Ambani businesses which failed to take off, Jet Airways or any other airlines which shut down, or even Reliance Industries needing to sell stake in its profitable Jio business to reduce debt, the list is long.
In the middle of the economic disaster of Lockdown and economy at near bottom, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a new slogan of "Atmanirbhar Bharat" (Self-Reliant India) and asked people to buy "Swadeshi". The great fan followers of PM Modi have lapped up the idea and started spreading the message. But many fans do not understand that the "version of Swadeshi" our Govt is promoting will by and large do not do any benefit to our economy. It is because in our Govt's version of "Swadeshi", even foreign companies' India units are treated at par with Indian companies.
Therefore, except Chinese toys, there won't be much impact of Swadeshi push because most foreign companies are already manufacturing in India. Most of the items consumed in our household are already made in India. And I bet people will still buy Chinese phones, no matter what PM Modi or our govt says.
How many people are reading this and tweeting #atmanirbharbharat using their Chinese phones? Indians are cost conscious and have little real pride of their motherland. Remember, many Indians still take pride that their ancestors served in colonial era British army. Most Indians traveled or wanted to travel abroad for honeymoons after marriage - that is also how many brought Coronavirus to India and poor people are dying. If given a choice, most Indians will go settle down abroad. Just look at parents whose kids are settled abroad. Raising slogans is easy.
And Govt gets the share of blame too. After every big scheme launch from Govt, huge orders go to China. E.g. after International Yoga day was conceptualized, millions of yoga mats were bought from China. After Coronavirus outbreak too, testing kits were bought from China. Govt should first practice "Swadeshi" itself before preaching it to common people.
As per our govt, buying a Toyota car, Unilever or P&G products are all "Swadeshi". One-by-one, all our Indian companies are getting sold out and our govt's version of "Swadeshi" will not stop it.
There is a good decision made by Govt that tenders below Rs 200 Crores won't be allowed to be global tenders. But this too is expected to be little impact since most of the MNCs which have India units will still take part in these tenders and can outbid Indian rivals.
If our government is really serious about "Swadeshi", it should adopt it in its true and real version, not in this pseudo version where Indian units of Foreign companies are also treated at par with Indian companies.
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