The last few months have been tense for the world and especially India due to the recent pandemic, Covid-19 or the Corona virus. Adding to this, the clash between the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army of China in the border of Ladakh valley has created more difficulty for the Indian government.
With diplomatic talks on the table, the officials are trying to resolve the matter peacefully but the meetings are bearing no fruit till the date.
Meanwhile, there has been a trend in India to boycott Chinese products by Indians in order to allegedly teach China a lesson. Various business organisations are requesting people not to use Chinese products as well as throw away appliances which are made in China. This is similar to the Swadeshi Movement which was started by Mahatma Gandhi during the British rule in India. That was the first AtmaNirbhar movement of India.
Time has changed and in a globalised world, it is not practical to boycott a company’s product. If also, the government really wants to be Self-Reliant or AtmaNirbhar as popularised, the first step has to come from the government itself. The rule is to attack in macro terms and not micro terms. The economic warfare has started but this has been started by individuals and is rather temporary in nature. Here, India has a golden opportunity to be the real AtmaNirbhar but the issue is, “Can the government do it?”
The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, affiliate of Rastriya Swayamsewak Sangh has urged the government to ban Chinese firms from the tender process. This is the first step which will help the government from draining Indian currency to China as well as a step at the macro level. Recently, the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System tender was awarded to the Chinese firm, Sanghai Tunnel Engineering Company.
There were Indian bidders too but the tender was awarded to the Chinese company. Also, in this year only the Chinese company Great Wall signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Maharashtra government and aims to infuse Rs 7,600 crores through a plant for producing UV and SUV cars.
Recently, educator Simon Wangchuk urged people to fight against the Chinese government through their wallets by uninstalling all the Chinese applications or software installed in their phones. In the next one year, the rule of Chinese hardware should be minimised as far as possible. But it must be known that Indian applications such as Oyo, PayTM and many others whose founders are Indians are receiving funding from the Chinese companies. Out of the total smart phones market in India 72 percent is with China.
Uninstalling applications from mobile phones will minimize the funds for China, but that will be just the tip of the iceberg. There has to be substitutes to Chinese products in India which are currently missing. The infrastructural and research and development backwardness in India has to be plugged; development has to be initiated and this is not an overnight process.
If a country is ready for war with another country, the two countries should be independent of each other. If two countries are dependent on each other by any means such as economically or politically, waging a war is not at all a viable option. In the case of India and China, India is, to a large extent, dependent on China’s money. If the money is withdrawn unilaterally by any of the countries, the India economy will collapse overnight and negative effects will also be borne by the Chinese. The present government which is economy-driven will never let this happen as the economics of politics will also hamper to a large scale if this is allowed to happen.
The two concepts are different today: geo-politics and economic affairs. Due to geo-politics the economy of the country will have to suffer if there is a war between the two countries. Geo-politics on one hand comes under the government while economic affairs are in the hands of traders and business organisations. The two should not overlap each other. At the present time, a war is not at all the possible option for India.
A party which was known to be capitalist in nature will hesitate to wage a war against a country as the government is surrounded by the economics of waging a war and also money pumped in by the rival country. The two countries have reframed the rules of dependence on each other and should move ahead with peace.
(The Author is a Law Graduate from National Law University and Judicial Academy, Assam and is pursuing Masters of Law from Gujarat Law University, Gandhinagar. He can be reached at jhunjhunwala09@gmail.com. The views expressed in the article are his own.)