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The Companies We Keep
Sanat Mohanty
The Indian government yearns for foreign direct investment - FDI - bending over backwards to attract it. We have changed laws - banking laws, regulations on farming, trade laws and domestic finance regulations - to attract companies. Given such efforts, which company would we rate most highly, as the company that has done the best for the Indian economy in building infrastructure, training and truly investing long term in India, as we look back through our history of corporate involvement.
One company seems to have been far ahead of everyone else in terms of these criteria. It would perhaps rate, in 2005 Re terms, as the company that has had the largest FDI in India. In addition, it spent large amounts in building infrastructure - roads, railways, mills, and distribution networks.
It created and provided more jobs in India than any other company. Given the size of its operations, all the numbers are not clear. It may have even created more jobs than all the other companies put together.
It also invested heavily in training Indians and may have also influenced much of the training for jobs in 2005. In addition, it also provided the foundations for bureaucracy in India. The company was so committed to its investments in India that it even transferred thousands of its employees to India to help train and run its operations here.
Yes, we are talking about the British East India Company. It was a company that invested in our resources - in building mines, in clearing our forests, in damming our rivers, and in investing in our resources.
And yet, we revolted. We chased it away. We fought to get that company off our backs.
What an imperial mistake that was. Now we have to beg companies to come invest in us. Unlike the East India Company, today companies hardly build any infrastructure and have little interest in building capacity in India.
We have to ask, what we learnt from the East India Company that we chased them away and why, now, are we inviting these companies to come and invest in our resources. Or, perhaps, we can learn how East India Company came to India in the first place and how they were able to influence policies to an extent that they could plunder at will.
It matters little that we elect the government - as long as it does what is in the interest of the companies, how does it matter?
The wheel has turned another circle perhaps.
The Companies We Keep
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gypsyman
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January 26, 2006
03:12 PM
Canada in the fifites and sixties was in the throes of developing an economy independant of Great Britian. Instead of investing money into building our own infrastructure and encouraging internal growth, we opened our borders to the economic giant to the south.
We set ups special laws and tax breaks; gave them all sorts of incentives like government grants to help establish themselves and saw hundreds of varitations of Canada Inc, or Cananda Ltd. spring up across the land.
These companies were of course beholden first and foremost the their parent firm back home in the States. It didn't matter what was good for the community or the economy of our country, all that was important was the bottom line and how many dollars could be sent home.
When our workers demanded fair wages and our governments decided that destroying the environment was not a cost we were willing to pay anymore, these branch plants decided they no longer wanted to operate in Canada. They have been pulling up stakes and moving to sunnier, less stringent realms ever since the seventies.
Our govenments still haven't learned their lesson; they keep talking about creating an environment friednly to investment. In other words one that sells the interests of Canadian people down the river for some short term gain.
India looks to be doing a better job of developing native industry than we ever did, and should continue on that slower, but in the long run, more fruitful path. Selling your country like a cheap whore ends up making you sick and decrepit. In the end you're used up and abbandoned and tossed on the trash heap.
Foriegn investment and branch plants are a dangerous game to play with an economy, and only those companies willing to abide by the laws and conditions that are set forth for native companies should be allowed to establish themselves.
Once they start asking for special deals they should be shown the door.
gypsyman
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