BHUBANESWAR: India is caught between a rock and a hard place in the global battle for hegemony between the United States and China. But the situation was not so till the late 1980s when the per capita income of the two countries were comparable with India on a slightly higher side, said former Planning Commission member Arun Maira.
Speaking to Lipika Bhushan on the session, ‘Making of a Nation: Fixing the Economy’, Maira said nowadays, India is not as strong as China. “Even the size of the economy of the two countries was almost the same with India on the higher side till the late 1980s,” he added.
The former Planning Commissioner member said, in those days India was better in manufacturing sector with the country exporting buses, trucks and machineries to the United States and European countries. But now the situation has drastically changed. Quoting a former Indian ambassador to China from a meeting in 2009 at New Delhi, Maira said India has now become a colony of China.
“When India opened its economy in 1991, the World Bank and IMF took over. They pressurised the country not to have an industrial policy and free imports for people to benefit from it. People had the opportunity to purchase the best of cars and other materials from the western countries and America, but the economy was not inclusive,” said Maira, who is also an author.
Recalling his days as a member of the Planning Commission, Maira said a study was commissioned to find out what was wrong with the economy. The study found that India’s GDP was the fastest growing, but the economy was the least inclusive.
Championing ‘Atmanirbhar Economy’, Maira said India has the largest population hungry for work. “But if we say stop importing from China, the industries protest,” he pointed out, adding China followed its own path of development. For the last four to five years, the present government is talking the language of the people as they have large base in RSS and BJP, he said.
The first mistake committed by the country in 1947 was accepting the industrial model of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru against the Purna Swaraj advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, he said further opining that an economy shaped by listening to the people and promoting cooperative enterprises, village industries can resolve the ills affecting the country.