India is one family that formed sixty five years back in the world village.
Indian family earns by offering products and services to this world village. Indian family spends by taking products and services from this world village.
Once upon a time, the Indian family tried to make their own food, clothes and shelter for themselves without depending on other village members. As they could not keep pace with rapid advent of technologies, they started importing and have now become totally dependent on other village members. They have abandoned the old model completely. They never took on the challenge of keeping pace with new technologies seriously.
If the entire world has been a family, it would have been a different scenario. Unfortunately it is not. Indian members are a family, as members in the India family make laws for their own family, follow their own rules and regulations, share common resources and are much more integrated internally, than with other members of the world village.
Indian family members use high-tech electronics that they import from other members of the village. The reason they import high-tech electronics is it would increase their productivity and thereby enable them to offer more services to the world village and thereby make them earn more. They import a lot of fuel from other members of the village. The reason for that is also to have a good standard of living and also increase the productivity. They also import a lot of technologies in medicine, agriculture, space research et al to ensure that they learn the latest skills and are not left behind.
Many of their imports are environmentally unsustainable. For eg., the e-waste that they are generating as a family is humongous. They don’t bother about it. Currently it is small and they are dumping in their backyard or keeping in a corner, hoping they can import methods that handle e-waste in future from other members of world village.
Thus they spend a lot (import a lot) (from present and also from future) because of their desire to increase productivity, improve standard of living and to have a skilled force in latest of technologies.
Initially they earned by making and selling clothes. They also make and sell agricultural products. Indians also provided their manpower services to other member families. With the advent of technologies, they were able to sit in their homes and provide manpower service for other families (they call it high-tech manpower services).
They try to make their own food. But in everything they produce from food, clothes, manpower services etc, the import component is too huge. Also the demand for their products and services is fluctuating.
Also many members of Indian family do household work and support other working family members. They do not earn that much. Many members of Indian family even do not have household work . They do not earn at all.
Overall they spend a lot and earn a little. The borrowings of Indian family is increasing.
There are members in the Indian family who earn a little and who earn a lot. This division is increasing day by day.
The high-earners think that low-earners should not be given anything (they call it subsidies), as they say that keeps the borrowings very high. They are extremely concerned at the borrowings as what they save in the family is already pledged to outside village members.
The low-earners and no-earners think that it is not their fault. The rampant imports of technologies and energy have led some members to offer services to other village members and earn hugely, while creating a huge cost burden on the family. The pilferage perpetuated by those who administer the family also added to cost burden.
The argument of low-earners and no-earners is that the high-earners due to very high consumption of imported energy and technologies and those who pilfer are the reasons for high spend of the family. The low earners and no-earners consume less of these. Hence they don’t want to be passed on with additional burden created by the high consumption and high-earners imports. Hence they demand that they be given enough financial opportunities to compensate for it.
The Indian administrators are trying to limit the use of resources such as energy to high-earners, by pricing the energy high. The Low earners fear that whatever little use they make of energy will go off with it and would make their life harder.
The Indian family hired experts from other village member families to help them set their house in order.
The ‘experts’ suggested that Indian family can pledge/lease its resources like Spectrum, Savings (insurance, pension funds), Minerals (coal, iron and steel), Oil, In-house trade (retail), Land etc to other members of Village. In that way Indian family will get some more money with which they can provide for more people. If more people becomes capable of providing products/services to other members of village family then the overall earnings will increase. They call it Foreign Direct Investment.
The experts say that with FDI and new technologies coming in, Indian family members will be made to make more productive use of their own resources. In fine-print they say that the majority earnings that will come out of this optimization will go to other village members who invested in the money and technologies in first place.
The high-earners are gung-ho about the FDI, as it is similar to the rampant import of energy and technologies that enabled them to earn a lot. The are sure that they will be able to earn a significant portion of the FDI earnings, as it involves new technologies and higher capital investments.
The no-earners and low-earners are dead-sure that the benefits of it are not going to reach them and is only going to increase the cost-burden (as the investors take out their earnings) for which they are going to be blamed more and their life made more miserable.
For sixty five years, the Indian administrators said the reason for huge import imbalance (High-spend) is the need to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of technologies. The import imbalance (high-spend) has only increased and has gone from fuel to electronics (with the advent of mobile, computer and consumer electronics revolution) and higher end technologies.
As of now it looks for another sixty-five years their import imbalance (high-spend) is going to spiral without control. But the administrators and high-earners have a plan for it. They are finding out more resources that can be pledged/leased to other village members, so that Indian family members acquire higher technologies and at least some members of Indian family scale great heights.
One dumb question even the latest born in the Indian family is asking and not answered by elders is
“Is there a vision or plan to rectify the trade imbalance (not by pledging/leasing, but by providing products and services to members of world village) over say next twenty years?”
In other words what do we see ourselves as offering to world in next twenty years and what we will be receiving from it?
If that gets balanced, then it becomes a question of getting more Indian members into providing what is required for internal and external needs. If we do not have an answer for it, then is it not the responsibility of Indian family members into working on it ?”.
Or ineptness and negligence will be justified in terms of economics and market forces or left to ‘fate’ of individuals, while family members keep fighting with each other and get split into smaller families over a period ?
-TBT
