How and why India is being sold

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How and why India is being sold

“The only thing worse than a political establishment selling its’ own motherland is the public which continues supporting it!!”

Ever wondered why International community is always so keen on slapping erring nations with economic sanctions? Don’t you think any nation can be self reliant and survive hale and hearty even without foreign trade? Why is For-ex so important? And can a nation actually survive in seclusion from International trade? The answers to these questions are really complex and entangled. However, to get things rolling, let me answer the last one first.

Consider a family living in a jungle, all on its’ own. All the family does is gather wood for fire, hunt for food and use hide for clothes, and all it has is a hut for a home. They have no interaction with the city that lies just beyond the edge of the jungle, they have no television, mobiles, internet, or electricity, and hence offcourse, no future. If you consider this situation as surviving, the answer to the last question is yes. And perhaps it answers the second question as well, the one about being self reliant: yes a nation can be completely self-reliant.

The point is, any country can be self reliant within the resources it has available at its’ disposal and can build a safe heaven on earth within the limiting constraints of those resources. But the moment it needs something that doesn’t exist in its’ environment, is not a part of its’ treasured Gold, it has to interact with international community. This is where trading ties kick in, and once the trading ties are in the picture, Foreign-exchange (Forex) reserves kicks in.

Forex reserves are the reserves of “International Currency of Commerce” which a nation holds, which it can use to buy from international market what it needs to develop or run its’ affairs successfully. The only way of building these reserves is by either exporting something to the world for the same “International Currency of Commerce” or by buying the same currency using its’ own currency. The value of a nation’s own currency is determined by how important its’ own exports are, for remember, it is always cheaper to buy a country’s products using that country’s currency, provided you have enough of it. The moment you start converting one currency into another, more so in case of “International Currency of Commerce”, the expenses increase as one is required to pay conversion rates and other fees. The current “International Currency of Commerce” as we all know is USD.

Lets’ take the example of Iran: Iran has oil to sell to the whole world which gets it Forex. But Iran has other needs like food, minerals etc. Imposing trade sanctions on Iran will decrease their earnings and put strain on their Forex reserves, meaning they will have to shell more money to buy “International Currency of Commerce”. Given the fact Iranian exports will be under sanctions, the value of their currency will drop further meaning they will have to shell even more, thus making it poorer. But offcourse if their Government is intelligent they can still create avenues of income and Forex generation by developing tourism, exporting education, and it could be no better time to develop self reliance as well. However the effectiveness of all these will depend upon their enthusiasm, honesty, intelligence, steadfastness and devotion to their motherland.

Now to return to the main concern of this topic, my motherland “India”, what does the current discussion have to do with India?

As an expatriate, I have always had a keen interest in the running of the affairs of my motherland. One of my best friends is a Major in Indian army who has already served in “Jammu and Kashmir” and “Manipur”, and has taken a bullet on chest (luckily he was wearing a safety vest). I have grown up reading about the great sacrifices made by great freedom fighters for Independence, the travails of partition, the subsequent engagements with Pakistan and China, and have been a witness to Kargil conflict. Nothing hurts me more than seeing the Indian politicians sell my India to foreigners so shamelessly and without remorse, just for personal benefit. What a bunch of traitors!

Now how is this blatant and shameless selling going on that I am trying to expose? Why is it going on? And how does it affect the future of India and every ordinary Indian? Let’s get on with all these questions, and in the course of all this, my brothers and sisters from former Soviet states might also get an idea as to what went wrong with their own economies. I don’t promise it to be an exact description of reason for their sufferings, but it just might be close enough.

To begin with, for someone who has been monitoring the rise and fall of Indian Rupee ever since he could remember, I would be lying if I said I was surprised at how the Rupee had been taking a constant tumble in comparison to USD. Surprised would be a very inept and mild term. And if I say I didn't smell something fishy right from the outset, it would be true only if I had been suffering from an eternally blocked nose with limited ability to smell. I was always scratching my brain as to why Indian Rupee was struggling especially when the US and entire world economy was in doldrums while Indian economy was still holding its’ own amid all the chaos. And when the pieces finally fell together I felt like lining up all the Indian politicians in front of a shooting squad made up of soldiers who’ve served in Kargil, and ordering them to fire at will. GOD knows, if there is anyone I cannot stand, it is traitors. So what happened?

Indian politicians have notoriously sold “Mother India” and its’ interests times and again, thanks to their inherently corrupt blood. India, as much as it is a land of great warriors, so many have it seen traitors who betrayed the same brave sons of India whenever India’s need was dire. This time however, they have crossed all lines of decency and morality.

Billions of USD, accumulated as black money originating out of kick-backs over the decades since independence, had been rotting in various foreign banks across the globe. Swiss Banks are the most notorious although twenty two account details have been provided to the current Indian Government by a German bank fairly recently. The politicians have since been busy making excuses in media as to how it is difficult to determine the identity of the real owners of those accounts and how investigations are under process. I somehow get a feeling, some money will exchange accounts and the truth will never come out. But what has this money got to do with this write up?

All that’s been happening in India since the past five years or so is directly linked to this dirty black money. The corrupt Indian politicians who sold “Mother India” and its’ interests to accumulate it, what a shame they have no means to use it. They are now getting desperate to get this money into action and live it. But how can this be legally possible without getting caught?

About two decades ago Indian economy was a closed economy. That was around time when Indian treasury was running empty and there was no source to get money, money which was needed for development, but more importantly, money that the politicians wanted to steal using their power and authority. At that time India took vast sums of loan from World Bank for running various projects. The loans were granted and the corrupt Indian politicians had a field day ripping Indian public behind the veils of various development projects. The sub-standard projects finished, a big chunk of money was siphoned off into foreign accounts using illegal tactics, and India was left with a huge debt, a debt whose principle was the least of concern when the interest was growing bigger than the galaxy.

The loans had been granted to India after it had provided Gold as loan protection. Time was running out and India was about to lose the Gold forever. This would have put the then Government and politicians on a very sticky wicket and they would have been completely exposed. At this point the Indian politicians sold “Mother India” to G8 group of countries. The deal they made was to open Indian market to foreign products, thus dealing the first blow to the Indian business Diaspora. The second part of the deal was to privatize all Government undertaking thus helping the foreign companies to make even more money via joint ventures with Indian companies. The money the foreign companies have since made out of Indian economy is much more than the entire loan and its’ interest. The Indian public was fooled by telling everyone as to how World Bank has forgiven the major part of the loan, and how the then Finance Minister and current incumbent Dr Manmohan Singh has brought the Indian Gold back. And those who tell me that foreign investment created jobs and helped Indians earn money, dude, that money did not come out of foreign pockets but was paid out of what was being made out of Indian economy.

Now it is the third stage of the same deal which is being hard pressed to be put into action, which if I could help, will never happen. At this stage the entire Indian market is going to be sold to foreign companies, making India a foreign colony once again, in all technicalities. The Government and flag will remain Indian but all the business will be foreign owned.

FDI or “Foreign Direct Investment” is the name every Indian is today familiar with. What is the story behind this FDI? And where and how does it fit with corruption, black money and selling of India?

As I mentioned above, the Indian politicians not only want to bring their black money back into India but they also want to sell India completely as they will be earning even more kick backs in the process. How is all this going to happen?

The politicians are very keen on passing the FDI act as it will enable foreign companies to open retail chains on the lines of Coles, Woolworths, K-Marts, Big-W etc in India. And in the process these dirty rotten Indian politicians will invest their black money clandestinely through the same foreign companies, thus buying a share in the Indian market in a hidden back hand manner. Thus the money they have currently stashed in overseas banks lying useless will become a part of Indian economy. But what has the falling Rupee got to do with it? How does it affect the ordinary Indians and why is it bad? How are the current politicians traitors?

Well friends, this story is not just a story of the worst kind of treason against the motherland but is a tragedy of gross proportions! The money these politicians have stashed in their overseas banks is all in foreign currency, the USD. These politicians, who have accumulated this money by selling Indian interests in the first place, also want to take out a bigger share of the Indian market using the same money. This is a story of un-inhibited and blind greed. These politicians want to be able to purchase much more than what their filthy rotten money would buy them under normal circumstances. The only way to achieve this was to weaken the Indian Rupee in comparison to USD. All the policies that have been pursued since the last few years have been leading up to nothing but this end that we find the Indian Rupee in today.

The simplest way to weaken a currency as I mentioned above is to cut down its’ exports while increasing its’ imports, thus creating an imbalance between the Forex reserves available for purchase and the actual Forex reserve needed. Over the last few years the Indian Government has progressively stopped one export after the other. The second largest producer of Wheat and Cotton, India banned wheat export for four consecutive years, and it’s nearly five years since wheat has been exported by India. Cotton had been banned twice for a year each around the same time. The Government banned the export of rice for a period of time too. What a shame the moment the ban on rice export was lifted, within five months India became the leading exporter of non basmati rice. Around the same time, expectedly, India’s oil imports increased as new consumers became owners of bigger vehicles and population increased. And oil is not the only thing India buys using USD, there are defence and other needs too. USD was not allowed to be earned but it was needed to buy everything. Indian Rupee was butchered in cold blood by its’ own leaders just to increase the buying power of their dirty black money.

It is not that the politicians were without excuses for doing all this. Once again the entire nation was fooled by the dirty rotten politicians when they said that the export has been banned as the Government wanted to keep the local prices of the same commodities in check which would otherwise shoot up due to domestic demand and poor crops. Sounds plausible, doesn’t it?

My dear friends, unfortunately, that is not the way intelligent Governments control prices. The way to control prices is to build up Government reserves of essential commodities like food grains, fibres etc so that when the crops for the same fail and the supply of the same in market falls down below the demand thus jacking the price of that commodity up, the Government rolls out the commodity from its’ own stock and hence controls the prices. Just Google the details about all the news I have mentioned so far about export bans and you will definitely run into the news feeds about how the Chinese Government has built up a 60% stock reserve of Cotton with an intention to keep domestic cotton prices in check in case the domestic crop fails. This is the mark of an honest and intelligent Government. This is how prices are controlled. And trust me friends, this is the way it was done in India too, not too long ago. Just Google for “Food grain rots in Government godowns” and you will get all the news results for India. The food grains in the stock were never released to control prices. Why? The politicians were earning payback from the traders who were having a field day when the ordinary Indian was struggling for space to breathe.

Unfortunately for India, the Indian politicians never intended to control prices, rather they wanted to weaken Indian Rupee. That is why they didn’t buy the produce to build up domestic reserves, rather stopped exports to reduce Forex reserves. If the Government was really sincere, how come in spite of the export bans the prices actually went up for all commodities?

Not too long ago, when the whole world was reeling under recession, India was one of the rare economies that were still growing in strength. The huge population, once a bane, made India go from strength to strength. The vast number of consumers, with the money of entire economy spread out into millions of bank accounts of small shopkeepers and working middle class, the demand for products never dropped. While businesses world over were feeling the heat, losing billions, closing down shop, relieving staff, Indian markets were bustling with life. But what was most striking feature of that time for me? With products piling up in international markets for want of takers, the prices, rather than collapsing in a heap, went up in India. The inflation never abated. So what did I miss?

Just to simplify what I am saying even further, let us say a man has $25 in his pocket and he wants to buy 10 products that would normally cost $10. Let us say the manufacturing cost of these 10 products is $2.50 (Let us not forget the money spent on advertising, taxes, fee and levy, dealer and shopkeeper margins, all add up to make the $2.50 production cost into a $10 selling price). During recession the same products, because no one else was buying them and they were piling up in factories, that man should have been able to buy for something like $7-8. But instead, that man was forced to buy the same products for $15 due to rising prices. Thus the man actually paid for the manufacturing cost of 30 products and covered the costs and provided profit for 10 of them. This is how India and other similar third world economies helped the global businessman survive, even if at the cost of their own purse.

Domestic market of India is full of products manufactured under international brand-names. From shampoos to soaps, hair tonics, deodorants, electronics, electrical equipment, cells, batteries, cars, everything is made and sold either as a foreign franchise or a collaboration product. So when the foreign production houses were struggling to find takers for their products globally, why were their products getting jacked up for Indian consumers? The fact the Indian consumers still bought those products to cover their necessities goes on to show the real strength of Indian economy that these corrupt politicians are trying to weaken. This is the reason why global economies are so desperately interested in investing in India.

The Indian politicians have however been helping the foreign businessmen to milk Indian economy all the time. These people are talking about 49% FDI in Retail sector, I can assure you, even a 10% FDI will completely ruin India and Indians. But how is this possible?

Let me explain!

A 10% FDI would mean 1 supermarket like Coles, Woolworths, K-Marts etc for every 9 other small shops. But those who live in western countries including Australia, we all know 1 super-market is actually equivalent to 50 small shops. Each supermarket sells products sold in scores of individual small shops. To take the example of Groceries like Coles and Woolworths, each one of them stocks stuff sold in Fruit shops, vegetable shops, bakeries, Utensil shops, cosmetics shops, Electrical equipment shops, electronics shops, gardening shops, ice-cream vendors, utilities, hardware, video stores, stationary shops, dairies, confectionary stalls, plastic ware shops, newspapers, flower shops, cigarette shops and many other things. This list is already “nineteen kinds of small shops” long. But then it is not just about what 1 supermarket cells. The trouble is, these supermarkets are not individual supermarkets, but these are chains spread across cities and towns. Each corporation owns thousands such stores across a country. What does that mean?

That means these corporations orders everything to be sold in their stores in huge numbers, thus sharply decreasing its’ buying costs. Thus these stores are able to sell their products at much cheaper prices than what a small shop owner will be able to sell, for he cannot compete in the buying price. What do you think will happen?

Doesn’t matter whether it is India or Philippines, Brazil or China, Australia or Europe, ordinary people everywhere have limited resources. They have no choice but to save money wherever they can. So how will ordinary people save money? They will shop from where they will get stuff cheap. What will happen of the smaller shops then? No prizes for guessing they will all close down. But what will happen of their owners?

These small shops are run as family businesses. These shops feed and provide for entire families. But once they are wiped out of the market the only option their owners and family members will have is to find jobs in the same supermarkets. That is where the situation gets worse. These supermarkets are not social organizations. They are run for profit. They cut costs wherever they can. More than 60% of staff that works in such supermarkets is young kids out of school whom they don’t have to pay much. They are referred to as juniors who work as temporary contracted staff. Even the mature people who work in these supermarkets only get paid barely enough to survive themselves. There is no way a person working in such supermarkets can support a family on their own. The worst is, each supermarket may close down thirty small shops in an area, but it will never provide work to everyone affected in return. And now with the advent of self scan machines, you can chop the number of jobs created further down.

Now consider the size of Indian population and the number of people already un-employed over there. 10% FDI is all that is needed to destroy the majority of Indian small business. But do these politicians care? Do you think they are not intelligent enough to know what I am saying?

These dirty rotten scoundrels were never interested in public welfare but their own greed and interests. If this current crop of Indian politicians is not stopped from selling India, it will be too late. Indian economy will collapse in the same way the economies of many former Soviet states collapsed when USSR fell apart. The bane of those economies was rapid capitalization. Small business was wiped out and there were not enough jobs for those left without a means. I don’t know if what I’ve heard about what happened in those countries is true or exaggerated, but if it is not true I humbly seek forgiveness from my Russian friends, but I have heard stories how the attack of poverty was so severe, many Russian women were forced to undertake prostitution to support families. I don’t know if it is true but I’ve been told by someone that people tore down Government buildings and took away the steel used in construction to sell and get money. What anyone could grab was taken! If this is true then trust me friends, India is looking towards something similar if the current situation is not halted.

There is a section of inherently corrupt people who have sold their souls to businessmen. They call themselves researchers and they claim privatization wasn’t fast enough for Russia which led to the economic collapse. Is it true though?

My dear friends, Privatization in fact has nothing to do with Capitalism or stability of an economy. Privatization was the brain child of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, a product of late 1980’s. All the privatization the world has seen happened in the last two decades only while US, UK, Australia and much of Europe had been Capitalistic economies for over a century before that. Privatization has nothing to do with Capitalism or Communism. Privatization is nothing but treason; selling the interests of a nation to private businessmen for personal favours or benefits.

What is Privatization? There is an industry for which Government owns the entire infrastructure and all it needs is to hire people to use and run the infrastructure to provide a service to the public in lieu of salaries. Instead what the Government does is it gives the authority to a third party, a private businessman or corporation, to hire the same people to use the same infrastructure to provide the same service and get paid the same. But in addition to the salaries paid to the people employed in that industry, now the Government pays that private businessman or corporation for doing what it could have done for free by itself. So is this an intelligent decision or is this betrayal?

The difference between Capitalism and Communism is, in Communism production is under Government ownership while in Capitalism all production is private owned. However, the golden rule of thumb is, what occurs naturally belongs to the society and hence should be controlled, governed and run by the Government irrespective of the form of Government. So natural resources like water, land and minerals are the property of the society and hence should be Government controlled, which includes mining. What is produced from natural resources like crops, finished products etc, they should be private controlled and owned in Capitalism, and Government owned and controlled in Communism. For those who say everything should be privately owned in Capitalism, friends, that would mean even roads, parks, lakes, rivers, seas and air should be privately owned and people should be forced to pay to be allowed their use.

Everything in USSR was Government owned but the solution was not to privatize everything by selling it to those with heaps of money to buy everything and out-smart people who only had the resources to own a small business. The ordinary Russian was never given an opportunity to own small business and run their family. Instead everything was quickly sold to the few with money, and all Russians were left with were underpaid jobs, that too not enough for the number of unemployed. If anything, privatization destroyed Russian economy.

What needed to be done in Russia was to continue the structure for however long it might have taken but the Government should have promoted small business ownership to make the public self reliant and get rid of the Government crutches which were the reminiscent of the Socialist past. Russian economy failed because the rich and powerful few wanted to own entire Russia, exactly what the current corrupt Indian political set-up is hell bent on achieving. That is why I call them traitors of ordinary people! And I have no respect or sympathy for traitors!

Anyway, my main interest in writing this article was to bring to everyone’s notice how Indian politicians are cheating Indian population and selling India. This is our last chance to stop them. After this it will be too late.

Before I finish this piece, I want to ask my Indian brothers and sisters one more question: “Why is it me who is telling you all this? Why is Team Anna quiet? Are they not intelligent enough to know all this or are they not honest enough?”

My dear friends, I am just one man, while Team Anna is made up of former IAS officers, IGPs’, religious leaders, teachers, professors, doctors and many more. So are they not intelligent enough to lead India or are they not honest enough?

Think clearly!

Fatal Urge Carefree Kiss,

Amanpreet Singh Rai

 

 

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