Aymen’s Page

Dear Dr. Manmohan Singh,

First of all, a hearty congratulation on your victory in the 15th Lok Sabha Election. 

As might have been reminded by many people, well-wishers and the media – this victory is history, and you’ve a shot at playing a bigger part in history than you believe you actually can.

Sir, you are a mild, soft-spoken (to the point of being inaudible) man and an intellectual – someone who represents the middle class’ idea of being a respectable person. This simple, soft-spoken and mild-manneredman has the chance of writing history. No, sir, not even a certain family can take away your right of being a part of the glorious story called India.

But neither an individual nor a nation has ever tasted greatness when it has been subservient to interests of others. People and nations that fight others’ battles and forget their own have sold themselves.

We cannot be a superpower, which is our dream, until we choose to work for our interests. This is about our foreign policy. No nation has ever achieved the respect of others until it commanded respect. The soul of the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru must be very restless, seeing the state of affairs of the MEA. India, till the Rajiv Gandhi government, enjoyed great respect in the Third World because it spoke up for what was right. From Myanmar to Palestine – to Cuba and Indonesia, India spoke for the rights of nations, and hence we had de facto friends from the Middle East to the Far East.

In the last five years, the only nations we know of have been Israel and the United States of America, especially the last President of the latter – now being investigated for war crimes – whom you claimed the whole Indian nation loved.

You may be unaware that our cold  friends in the East have made disturbing advances in Africa and Latin America – both the nations have raw materials but not technology – which we can provide.

Iran, a nation that has repeatedly blocked anti-India resolutions in the OIC meetings, was treated with complete apathy. What stopped the world’s largest democracy from going ahead with a mutually beneficent deal? If your government feared Pakistan’s instability, Mr. Swaminathan Aiyer gave you no reason to worry about Pakistan.[1]

While your government, in its last days, quickly signed a huge arms deal with Israel, your government found it “morally irresponsible” to sign the Free Trade Agreement with the ASEAN countries.[2] Should you not make friends with the African countries, the countries from the Far East, should you not learn from the Latin American countries that are far ahead of us when it comes to achieving the Millennium Development Goals[3]

Mr. Prime Minister, nations are remembered not for their laziness, but for their active approach towards world problems. If we want a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for ourselves, we will need more friends than the existing two. We should actively participate in criticizing the Robert Mugabe regime of Zimbabwe, the Somalian fiasco of the Americans, Omar-el-Bashir’s ”immorality” and the role that China played in hard-selling Mugabe and Omar. We should take a stand that is exactly opposite of that taken by China. By doing so, we shall not only gain the world’s respect, but also feel proud of the fact that we are giving jitters to the Chinese, that we are a meaningful democracy and that we are a peace-loving nation.

Your partymen may blame the Left for blocking your economic “reforms”, but you do know it well – that hadn’t it been the Left, we wouldn’t be the “second fastest growing economy”. It was the left which rightly blocked the anti-people policy of indiscriminate privatization of Insurance, Retail and Banking.

You know it well, that our robust banking sector is because a woman in the 1970s nationalized a lot of banks; she was Indira Gandhi. 

Coming to the FDI that was increased to 49% from 26% in the insurance sector. The insurance sector, again, we’ve seen that the US is in a crisis, with it’s company’s assets turning toxic. I’ve reasons enough to suspect that you will permit the FDI in insurance to increase from 49% to 51%, meaning that foreign companies will be free to buy our insurance companies and put us in a spot where AIG today is.

Unlike the Americans, Indians don’t live in idealism – we don’t have commitments to Capitalism and Individualism, as you’ve often spoken, quoting Keynes and Krugman. It is time you implement them. There is a stake here, which goes beyond economics; it is the stake of millions of middle class Indians who trust Public Sector Utilities to protect their lives. No sir, we are not America and we shouldn’t be like it.

Similarly, the unorganized and the lower middle class citizens of the country depend upon the old way of retailing; FDI in retail is an unjust policy which will push 40 million people to the land of unemployment, loss of opportunities.

Instead of providing micro-credit and physical infrastructure for the smaller businesses to grow, your government, with your blessings, has gone ahead with unjustly making them compete against Carrefour and Wal-Mart.

Trade retailing is the single largest component of the services sector in terms of contribution to the gross domestic product. It accounts for 14 per cent of the service sector, i.e., twice that of the next largest economic activity in the sector — banking and insurance. The total number of retail outlets (both food and non-food) was 8.5 million in 1996 and 12 million in 2003, a 41 per cent rise.[4] 

The following are a few numbers, taken from the same source as above.

 

 

In 2004, Wal-Mart had a turnover of $256 billion and it recorded a net profit of $9 billion. Its 4,806 stores employs 1.4 million persons. The average size of a Wal-Mart outlet is 85,000 square feet and the average turnover about $53 million. The turnover per employee is $1, 82,000.

By contrast, the Indian retailer had a turnover of Rs 1,86,075 ($4,100 approximately) and only 4 per cent of the 12 million retail outlets occupied space larger than 500 square feet. The total turnover of the unorganized retail sector, which employs 39.5 million persons, was Rs 735,000 crore. India has 35 towns each with a population of over one million. If Wal-Mart were to open, on an average, one store in each of these 35 cities and if each achieved the average Wal-Mart performance per store, the turnover would amount to over Rs 8,033 crore and number of employees to only 10,195.Extrapolated to the rest of the country, it would mean displacing around 4,32,000 persons.

Mr. Prime Minister, while we all appreciate the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Loan Waiver and other Bharat Nirman programs, five years of your rule has pushed our HDI ranking to 128 from 126, making the “world’s largest democracy”, “world’s second fastest growing economy” and a “global superpower” in the bottom 50. Clearly, we need more than just temporary employment generation to penetrate.

What is it that stops us from providing healthcare, employment  and education to our people? Is it the bureaucracy? Then the Moily Committee’s recommendations for administrative reforms awaits your implementation. Is it the lack of political will?  Do you want the country to stay poor, unhealthy, hungry and unemployed?

What puts us be behind countries like Sri Lanka , Guatemala, Botswana, Bolivia (the continent’s poorest country) and Vietnam?

As a citizen, I worry about my fellows – I wonder why Mandal gets implemented and Sachar gets only a 15 point programme. I wonder why alleged thugs and criminals and those who incite riots give their opinions in newspapers, get elected and become Prime Ministerial candidates, while the victims get amnesty (Nellie), pathetic human conditions (Bombay Hotel, Gujarat), and a Srikrishna Committee. You were quick to pass legislation when it came to terrorist attacks; what stopped you from introducing legislation with tough provisions for the perpetrators of communal violence? After all, it is your party which has taken the legacy of Indian ’secularism’ forward.

But this is the past, should we forget it? Nay! It is to be remembered, and it should be remembered, lest you shouldforget that your government enjoys the confidence of the people, more than the parliament. In the coming five years, it is expected of you to:

1. Continue with the NREGS, but include highway building and infra. development in the scheme.

2. Introduce a similar NREGS which works for the urban poor.

3. Implement the Moily Committee’s recommendations and scrap Macaulay’s ideas.

4. Pursue a foreign policy which is at least mutually beneficial.

5. Forget FDI in insurance, retail and banking – introduce FDI, unto 100% in health and education.

6. Introduce legislations which shall deter rioters and people who spread communal hatred from contesting in elections