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The Mask of Swadeshi

I think it is time we took a close look at what swadeshi stands for.

For most people, swadeshi stands for nationalism. For being proud of what India has done and can do, to fulfil its own destiny. On its own terms.

Swadeshi, for them, means being Indian, buying Indian, saying no to MNCs. Saying no to Pepsi and Coke, McDonalds and KFC, Wrigleys and Polo. It revives picturesque memories of the Quit India movement. Of Gandhi at the charkha. Of burning foreign goods at street crossings and raising aloft the banner of freedom.

But is this the swadeshi we talk of today?

Today India is free. No one dumps their rubbish on us. No one can. We have a choice. If Pepsi and Coke sell here, it is not because America has forced them on us. It is because you and I have chosen them as preferred options. On our own. We have jettisoned some of our own desi brands and welcomed them in. Succumbing to their sexy, powerful messaging. Just as many of us have chosen to wear Nike and Reebok instead of shoes made in India, which are possibly just as good.

It is simply a question of choice. Not colonisation.

To see it as colonisation distorts the picture. It distorts the picture because the global economy that we are slowly (and inexorably) becoming a part of is largely driven by consumer choice. Choice that we are now beginning to recognise as crucial in a market economy. For it upgrades quality, brings down prices, offers us better and better deals as the brands fight each other for market share.

We, as Indians, no longer have to suffer the service in our nationalised banks. We can park our money in Citibank or ABN Amro or Bank of America and get round the clock, worldclass service at a price. Maybe even a steep price. But it is the price that you, as a consumer, have chosen to pay because you see a clear and distinct advantage in, say, quality service and no one can deny you your right to pay more and get better served.

If (on the other hand) quality service is not what you want, if low cost banking is your preferred choice, you can always go to your friendly, neighbourhood Dena Bank or Syndicate Bank or the Bank of Punjab & Sind and open an account there. The bank will charge less for its services and if you are happy with the way they handle your account, you can always stay with it. The option is entirely yours. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to decide which option is right for you.

In other words, much as politicians may distort the picture, swadeshi is no more a war against colonising nations. It is, in today's context, is the local option in a typical consumer matrix. You can buy a Sony or a Samsung, if you want an expensive, internationally branded television. Or you can buy a Videocon or a BPL, at a much better price, if the quality satisfies you. It is a choice you are consciously making.

Buying an Indian brand does not make you a patriot just as buying a Sony does not make you a traitor. You are, simply, choosing what you like. Based on what appeals to you, what you can afford.

This is not a moral issue. Nor, for that matter, is it a nationalist issue.

You have chosen to buy what you like. Exactly as you will buy a book you want to read. No one will call you any less an Indian were you to read Octavio Paz in preference to Arundhati Roy or if you watched a Martin Scorcese film in preference to Govind Nihalani. So why should anyone worry overmuch if you swoon over Madonna and not Sadhana Sargam, if you dance to Barbie Doll and not to Bolo Ta Ra Ra?

The problem lies in the politicisation of swadeshi. We have taken a simple, innocuous word and made it so pregnant with meaning that it no more stands for what it ought to. It has assumed a much larger cultural definition. In fact, it has spawned a lexicon of its own. Where swadeshi means protecting Indian industry, Indian goods, Indian enterprise against predatory MNCs out to grab a lucrative share of the growing market. To take this argument further, swadeshi now means putting up tariff barriers to keep firang goods out and protect local businessmen who may (otherwise) find themselves hopelessly outpriced, outclassed, outdated.

It also means protecting shabby products, greedy pricing, rotten business practices. It means keeping alive inefficient technology, outdated factories, filthy market practices that grew out of a environment where the vile and the venal were always protected.

The biggest losers are we, the Indian middle classes. While the world drove Ferraris and Alfa Romeos, we paid through our nose for the fat bottomed Ambassadors and the squat, ugly Padmini that no one anywhere would have bought. We were caught in a web of corruption and deceit, where we had no say over what was available to us. We were forced to fork out absurdly high prices for disgustingly bad products dumped in the marketplace. Not by unscrupulous MNCs but by our own fellowmen. All in the name of building Indian enterprise.

Today, the same wheeler dealers are back. They cannot face the challenge of international brands, which are better, cheaper, more cost efficient, more environment friendly. Plus, their R&D costs have been amortised over huge international markets, making them available at a friendlier price. A price that can seriously hurt Indian industry which has managed to stay afloat (all these years) on the basis of small volumes and high margins.

That is why you now have swadeshi. A new slogan. A new nexus between Indian businessmen and Indian politicians, created with the sole objective of protecting those who do not deserve to be protected. Who have cheated the Indian consumer for years and, in the name of nationalism, now want to continue their strangehold on the economy. They want to keep out global competition at any cost.

That is why they have created this hoopla about swadeshi.

Swadeshi cannot strengthen India. It has nothing to do with nationalism or self respect. It is just another ploy to keep alive those who will not, cannot cope with global competitition, who have cheated and misled Indian consumers for fifty years and made us the laughing stock of the world with our shoddy products, our absurd prices. That is why we could never compete in the world. We could only fleece our own people who had no option but to buy whatever was available to them. That is why we waited for three years, to buy a car that would be promptly sent to the workshop for repairs. That is why we paid outrageous prices to buy substandard drugs, badly recorded cassettes, shoddy PCs, frigidaires that looked like almirahs and whiskeys that tasted like ditch water.

The crooks got away with all this and more. They got away because we had no option. Because government after government pampered lazy, unprofitable PSUs and protected venal, corrupt businessmen who made huge profits out of cheating the Indian consumer.

That is why globalisation is so crucial for us. Not because the MNCs can come in and loot India. Coke is not the East India Company. Nor is MTV's agenda to corrupt our youth. All they are doing is opening up our economy, offering you and me (as consumers) new choices. We can reject these choices if we want and stick to the old and time-tested. Or we can succumb to the challenge of the new and untried. It is a call you and I will have to make.

Swadeshi has no role to play in this. It is just a red herring.

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