Call for boycott of made-in-china diwali crackers

This Diwali, supporters of the Free Tibet Movement are asking Bengalureans to show support and boycott anything made in China.

BENGALURU: This Diwali, supporters of the Free Tibet Movement are asking Bengalureans to show support and boycott anything made in China.
“Supporting the Tibetans means supporting the Indian-ness of India,” says T S Chandrashekar, director of Korea Trade Center. He is an active supporter of Free Tibet movement.

The Indo-Tibetan Friendship Association Bangalore is keen that the boycott initiative starts from the “IT hub” of India. “Because then it would be more impactful,” according to Chandrashekar.
The association is hoping to spread awareness in at least 10 colleges in the city about how the Indian economy will run dry from the flood of Chinese goods. So far the association has covered St Joseph’s Evening College, VET College, Sarvagna College and CMR College.

Indo-Tibetan Friendship Association in Bangalore was established 25 years ago to help 40,000 Tibetans living in the state in five different settlements. Karnataka was one of the first states to lend a helping hand to the refugees who came to India after a 1959 Tibetan Uprising.

In the 60s and 70s, Tibetans had boycotted Chinese goods by burning them. “But that was simply a politically driven move,” says Dhondup, administrator of Tibetan Youth Hostel Bangalore. This time, they are trying to save an economy too. “Day by day, it is getting harder to give up Chinese goods and I don’t think there would be any impact if only Tibetans boycott them. The support from India means that there is something wrong with Chinese goods... beyond politics. Edibles, especially, are very tasty but all ingredients are named in Chinese. So a person eating it will have no idea what they are eating.”

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Employment China’s proportion of global exports rose to 13.8 per cent in 2015 from 12.3 percent in 2014. “China is trying to capture the markets of small Asian and South East nations. There will be a great threat to the Indian Market,” said Dr  Ramanjaneyulu, professor of Economics at Bangalore University.

“Small-scale manufacturing units and medium scale manufacturing units are the backbone of any country. In India this is being eaten up by the Chinese products,” says  Chandrashekar.
Niranjan Umapathy, Co-ordinator of Indo-Tibetan Friendship Society, was in Sikkim last year. He observed that around 150 buses were entering India through Nathula Pass with various kinds of goods and, at the same time, hardly 10 buses were leaving to China from India. “I witnessed how much India is depending on Chinese goods,” he says. “Boycotting Chinese products will not be easy but it is not impossible,” says Niranjan. “We are drawn to them because they are cheaper, but what about the long-term impact?... We should not lose sight of the big-picture.” Chandrashekar says that Chinese goods are poor in quality. “They pay no heed to quality or international market norms such as ISI,” he says.

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