| Issue 24 Vol I, September 30, 2006 | Archive |
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Federal
Industrial Package should aim Dispersal of industries BEFORE we touch the subject of the Government of India’s yet to be announced economic package for the industrial development of the economically most deprived districts of Punjab, it will be worthwhile look at the thrust of the industrial revolution of the 19th century Great Britain and the United States of America. Great Britain, during the days of the industrial revolution, was presiding over the biggest empire of the World. Its capital London was bursting at the seams. If Britain wanted, it could have all the industrial growth in and around the city of London. But the British planners knew it well that London, as the capital of the British Empire, shall due to its exalted status always have a self sustaining economy and it will grow by itself. So they decided to disperse their industry into the hinterland. As a result, places like New Castle. Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Yorkshire and Liverpool flourished as the centers of industrial growth. In America, the university rich belt starting from Boston, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia and going up to Baltimore was capable of growing by itself. So the heavy industry was planned to flourish in the Great Lakes area of Northern New York, Northern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois. In the Post World War II 20th century the government’s stress was on developing the Southern Sun Belt states. That is why the State of Texas is developing at the fastest pace. New Orleans has become America’s biggest center of oil imports. Dr. Manmohan Singh’s concept of establishing super thermal power plants near the coal pits in Jharkhand has a dual purpose. The first is that he wants the backward states to pick up pace of development and the second reason is that the transportation charges will be less and the cost of generated power will also be less. He also wants accelerated pace of construction of hydro-electric plants in the water fall rich states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. Since Punjab is the state of his childhood, Dr. Manmohan Singh understands the nitty gritty of the patterns of Punjab’s industrial and economic growth. As an economist he was not in favour of the trifurcation of Punjab into Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. He knew that electric power was the most basic infrastructure needed for economic growth. Since the resources for the generation of 98% of Punjab’s total potential for hydel power existed in the areas now merged into Himachal Pradesh, Dr. Manmohan Singh realized that without those areas which got merged into Himachal Pradesh, Punjab will always be a poor state in terms of resources. Since Haryana surrounded the national capital New Delhi on three sides, he knew that Haryana will eventually have much better position for industrial growth. Punjabi Suba, as it was carved out, from the point of view of economics was going to be a disaster. We are seeing that happening in front of our own eyes. Such disadvantaged states deserve a strong doze of economic packages. The highly picturesque state of Jammu and Kashmir is suffering seriously from a seemingly unending phase of insurgency. Himachal Pradesh was doing quite well in agricultural and horticultural growth, but industrially it was lagging behind other neighbouring states. It has picked up since the special economic zones came up at Baddi and MEHPAUR. By the same token Uttaranchal, even after being carved out of the largest state Uttar Pradesh was not showing real industrial growth. Considering all that, the Vajpayee government gave a very effective federal tax exemption package for industrial growth to all these states. During half a decade of these incentives to its neighbouring states, Punjab has become the worst sufferer from the flight of industrial units these states. To make the matters worse for Punjab, the Manmohan Singh government has extended the tenure of the incentives to the hill states by another four years. This is hurting Punjab and even the congress chief minister Capt. Amarinder has been forced to protest loudly. It is quite natural for Punjab to cry for such concessions. Dr. Manmohan Singh understands that Haryana and Uttar Pradesh will also ask for similar incentives for their states. Considering the fact that under orders of the Supreme Court of India, Delhi’s entire polluting industry and even non polluting industry located in the residential areas was ordered out of Delhi, it had no other place to go to except moving into Haryana and U.P. Not many of Delhi’s industrialists, whose families are living in Delhi, are in mood to go to far away states like Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttaranchal. So these states are not hurting at all. Dr. Manmohan Singh also understands that Mohali, due to its proximity to the City Beautiful Chandigarh is not going to hurt all that badly. Ludhiana being the largest industrial city of Punjab is seriously suffering from urban blight. Its civic infrastructure is crumbling due to mismanagement and overpopulation associated with industrial growth. The people of Ludhiana deserve industrial incentives, but at a place which is cheaper in cost and otherwise industrially backward. Considering all the above, Dr. Manmohan Singh should pick up Punjab’s worst suffering districts. These are the districts sharing an international border with Pakistan. Ferozpur lost all its trade with Kasur and Lahore in Pakistan. Amritsar lost its trade as India’s largest trading center for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Being a border city without a god father Amritsar lost its industry to Ludhiana, Panipat and Faridabad. Gurdaspur lost most of its industry to the neighbouring states of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. In most probability Dr. Manmohan Singh is going to give an industrial growth package, similar to the one given to the hill states, to these border districts of Punjab. These districts bore the brunt of the 1965 and 1971 wars. Ludhiana industry should have tax exemption advantages forty miles to the South West in Ferozpur district. The NRI rich Doaba region, where land values are shooting up to the sky, the industrial entrepreneurs can buy land in the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur and set up their manufacturing units in there. This will disperse the industry and lead to the balanced development of entire Punjab. But the new policies need not disturb the already established units. Relocation has happened in case of Baddi and Mehatpur in Himachal and it serves little purpose. There is no new growth. In the economic zones and though special packages, at times only packaging is done at the new units to claim concessions and no real industrial development takes place. The government ought to keep this mind while designing new policies. |
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Gandhi and
his 9/11[1906] Satyagraha -1
The majesty and beauty of the first Satyagraha can be found in its broad scope which encompassed diverse themes and which is of immense relevance for our own time. The first and foremost message of the first Satyagraha is harmony, tolerance and solidarity of different religions. The Hindus, Muslims, Parsis and Christians participated in it and fought for their common rights by learning and applying the methods of self restraint, sacrifice and respect for one another’s faith. The denomination of a person in stead of coming on the way of a concerted movement became a cementing factor and contributed to its onward progress. During the freedom movement Mahatma Gandhi repeatedly referring to the first Satyagaraha used to say that adherence to truth and non-violence enabled the Satyagrahis to see beauty in each and every religion. In fact it is instructive to note that Muslims remained in the forefront of the first Satyagraha and they never gave priority to their religious identity over their other identities. Today when fanatic elements are causing divisions in our society on the basis of religion and asking our Muslim brothers and sisters to prove their patriotism let us recall the message of the first Satyagraha and refashion our own approach to understand their commitment to the cause of India. It is of utmost importance to know that when Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of the first Satyagraha, fell unconscious uttering Hey Ram after he was fatally attacked by Muslims for compromising on the issue of registration of Indians under the prevailing law by giving finger prints, he issued an appeal to the Hindus in South Africa not to get agitated. He asked for restraint and requested them not to put themselves on the wrong side. Gandhi did not plead for the prosecution of those who attacked him. It is this spirit of broadminded approach eschewing retaliatory attitude is of critical relevance for the twenty first century world marked by violence due to advocacy of the action and reaction theory by communal and fascist forces. This is the age of geo-economics. Competition in trade and commerce is the defining aspects of this age. It is fascinating to recall that Indians faced discrimination in South Africa primarily because the white settlers there could not compete with the Indians in reaping better profits in the world of business. It sounds strange that Indians hundred years back with the disadvantage of education, technical skill, colour of the skin and above all of absence of political power were beating the British people in the field of business. Gandhi in his book Satyagraha in South Africa has written that had Indians remained in the condition of semi slavery without challenging the monopoly of British settlers on trade, the rights of Indians would not have been adversely affected by legislative measures. He wrote “To nip the political power of Indians in the bud was for them the indispensable first step; but the real point of attack was Indian trade and free Indian immigration”. Hundred years after the first Satyagraha India is emerging as a major economic player in the world and the whole world is watching India with trepidation because of the competitive ability of Indians in showing remarkable business acumen and registering impressive success in the field of trade and commerce. President George Bush in the State of the Union Address referred to the competition from India and appealed to the people of the USA to boldly face it. Let us reverentially pay our tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and all those who participated in the first Satyagraha in 1906 for the inalienable rights of the Indians for doing business. One of the striking aspects of the 9/11, 1906 is the way Indians and Chinese came together to fight against discrimination. Mahatma Gandhi has acknowledged that without the participation of the Chinese residents of Johannesburg the Satyagraha would not have been successful. In fact the Chinese along with Indians were asked to obtain licence to do business in South Africa. It was the common cause of business which brought them together in South Africa hundred years back. In twenty first century both the countries are in the forefront of a world the contours of which are determined by increasing value and volume of trade and commerce. I recall Deng Xiao Ping who said that without India and China coming together, the twenty first century cannot be made the century of the Asia-Pacific. The seeds of making the twenty first century an Asia-Pacific century were sown when India and China were united together in 1906 and fought for their genuine rights. That spirit has to be recaptured to revitalise our relations and restore the spiritual basis of our material progress. We are familiar with the theory of clash of civilisations advocated by eminent scholar Prof. Samuel Huntington. It is a dangerous theory which sees different civilisations in antagonistic terms. The same was advocated by General Smuts in South Africa when Mahatma Gandhi was spearheading the first Satyagraha. When Indians fought against the restrictions imposed on them for their entry into Transvaal General Smuts said “South Africa is a representative western civilisation while India is the centre of Oriental culture. Thinkers of the present generation hold that these two civilisations cannot go together. If nations representing these rival cultures meet even in small groups, the result will only be an explosion”. Mahatma Gandhi described such argument as pseudo philosophical and said that oriental civilisation not only does not fear but positively welcomes free contact with Western civilisation. What Huntington said was an extension of what General Smuts articulated in 1906. When the exclusivist approach to culture and civilisation is being revived, the world view of Mahatma Gandhi that civilisations could come in contact and coexist is of practical necessity for our world troubled by upsurge of fanaticism and terrorism. It is this transcendental message of the first Satyagraha that has to seep into our consciousness and guide our action. [To be continued] [Writer is a Gandhian scholar and director in Indian Prime Minister’s Office, New Delhi] |
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PEOPLE
across the world are familiar with the term 9/11. It became notoriously
famous for the savage terrorist attack on the United States of America and
was interpreted as one of the worst and deadliest attacks on freedom,
democracy and civilised existence. The paranoia spread by the very mention
of 9/11 is symbolic of the problems associated with terrorism and its
terrible consequences for society. There is 9/11 associated with our own
history which conveys a sublime message and heralded a new age of
reconstruction and reconciliation anchored on non-violent action. We are
less aware of that 9/11 . It was on this day in 1893 that Swami
Vivekananda delivered his historic lecture at the world parliament of
religions in Chicago cautioning the world about the danger posed by
fanaticism and hoping that the bloodshed and violence caused by the fanatic
elements would not occur in future. Thirteen years later on 9/11, 1906,
Mahatma Gandhi started his first Satyagraha which was unprecedented in
history in harnessing spiritualism in the fight for freedom and democratic
rights of Indians who were deprived of these basic rights because of the
colour of their skin. It was the first step for our non-violent struggle for
independence and a remarkable step in the history of mankind for
restructuring the world on the basis of non-violent method. It continued for
eight years and bequeathed to us a lasting significance as a rare
revolutionary event in history.