#Atmanirbhar India: MISSION DRAGON IS POSSIBLE?

Jun 25, 20204 min read

Updated: Jul 29, 2020

|By- Komal Yadav|

People come and people go, choice is yours to say yes or no. With a wide variety of products available in the market it becomes difficult to choose one, isn't it? Besides What if there are limited choices left in hand. It would be easy to buy plus no more waste of time. I suggest that this situation might suit you on condition that you don’t mind taking potluck! Why?

It's high time to make your choices clear by dumping Chinese goods and services. We have witnessed the cloud of recurring sentiments after every disturbing node of the Chinese movement in India now and then. Be it Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the freedom fighter or Baba Ramdev, the Yoga guru cum entrepreneur to Sonam Wangchuk, engineer, innovator, and the inspiration behind popular Hindi film '3 Idiots'. Time has its way to knock your door and put your minds to ruminate.

After the announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Self Reliant India vision, Sonam Wangchuk mooted the urge to boycott ‘MADE IN CHINA’ products. Has the time come for a Drive to thrive for Transformational Reformation? How far are we self-sufficient for escalating wallet power than the bullet power? Is it feasible to boycott made in China? And most importantly How do we achieve Self Reliant India vision? All your queries will be answered here in this article. So let's begin from where we stand.

INDIA-CHINA TRADE BUSINESS

India holds the largest market for the Chinese goods as every second item bought by us here is indistinctively made in china. From clothes, utensils, stationary items, medicines, electronic gadgets or be it a small pin, we use irrespective of commodity or services which are rooted up from dragon. A huge number of consumer durables are imported from China. It has left no nook and corners to invade our household areas. Undoubtedly, we will hardly see any house surrounded by stuffs made in India. China is currently our largest goods trading partner making India one of the largest importer. In the report of 2018-2019, exports are high to that of imports in India enabling $53.6bn Trade Deficit. A broad gap between the two nations are widening.

They have expanded their roots by investing its shares in various Chinese products in India like pharma, smartphones, steel, telecom, television and auto companies, etc. The Middle Kingdom’s investments were $1.6bn in 2014 which is increased to $8bn by 2017, according to a report from Brookings India, which outweighs all other neighboring countries combined. Also, we are heavily dependent on bulk drugs called Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). They are the raw materials utilized for making medicines, for instance, paracetamol is the API for Crocin. Around 70% of the total bulk drugs are imported from China. Other than that, 18 out of 30 Indian unicorns are funded by Chinese technology investors, including the likes of Tencent and Alibaba. The facts itself state that we are no less than a hostage in our own country.

IS IT FEASIBLE TO BOYCOTT MADE IN CHINA?

Each country is integrated in the world. Keeping out of china is practically impossible as of now. No country has been succeeded to completely boycott any foreign goods backed by history till date. For e.g China mission for boycotting Japanese goods, USA boycotting french goods or Jamaicans raged for evacuating goods from Trinidad and Tobago and the list goes on. No country has been panned out.

Furthermore, “ YEAR WITHOUT “ MADE IN CHINA”- One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy “ is a book written by Sara Bongiorni, an experienced journalist who tried to experiment on living a year without making avail of dragon’s goods. I haven’t read the book but through the review, it could be clearly understood how difficult it was for her family to refrain from buying Chinese goods. It shows how they were under so much financial pressure while it was unable to get stuff at an affordable price along with good quality. By ignoring, they were only getting half of what they demand leaving them discontent.

Well speaking of the current position that we stand in, highly dependent, I can’t see an escape but you never know. Certain actions are needed to be taken to achieve this goal.

WHAT THINGS ARE TO BE DONE FOR SELF RELIANT INDIA?

Every problem is backed by a solution regardless of what price we need to pay. We need to figure out certain reformations that will aid the vision for Self Reliant India before jumping on to conclusions.

The government needs to play a crucial role. It needs to facilitate reforms like good infrastructure, logistics, resources, land, and labour. It’s the need of the hour to put one's house in order before calling for an evacuation of Chinese goods because, in the rankings of ease of doing business, India holds 63rd position when compared to that of China at 31st.
Focus to employ in sectors that yield sound income like agriculture, textile, leather, footwear, furniture, and marine commodities. Once the employment is generated it will open the doors for proliferating the country’s economy.
India has become the new assembly hub for manufacturing industries which now can be seen as an opportunity to work due to an accomplishment of Make in India vision 0.1. Likewise, a top executive of a company mentioned, it can be a chance for building India as a top manufacturing hub for big companies anticipating the fourth industrial revolution.
Import substitution needs to be done. It refers to the substitution of products that were supposed to import. Still, there might be a problem of inefficient good as not all can be a goldsmith.
Find alternatives, Indian alternatives to those products. We have the capabilities.
Last but not the least, Phase wise approach is needed to be adopted as the saying goes Rome was not built in day nor it would be viable. It could be feasible for the long run but not for the short run.
Hence, it's easy to say hard to implement with the hefty population globally along with the economy losing its grip and masses facing unemployment although hardly impossible. You can snap a twig but you can't break a bundle of sticks tied together.