the inflow of f oreign capital.
Moreover, the FII component of the
foreign capital had jumped several
tim es relegating the FDI
component to secondary place.
This means that the foreign capital
that came into India during this
period was more into the stock
exchanges rather than starting new
industrial units.
How the natural resources of
the country were handed over to
the imperialist sharks in a golden
platter by the UPA-1 had come to
the light as in the case of allotment
of 2G spectrum and coal blocks.
Apart from the corruption involving
hundreds of crores of rupees, the
loot of natural resources was made
free of any restrictions and the
future of the country was thus sold
away. Once the natural resources
were cornered, how these forces
used their monopoly to twist the
arms of the government to impose
unimaginable prices on the people
for the very natural resources that
belong to them was recorded in the
case of Ambani’s demand on behalf
of British Petroleum and the Indian
government’s acceptance to raise
the price of natural gas from $4 to
18 p er BTU. The then Prime
Minister called it as crony
capitalism, but actually it is the
bureaucratic capitalism, which is
one of the basic nature of Indian
big bourgeoisie.
The BJP which made severe
criticism on the corruption that took
place around these sell off of our
natural resources like G-2
spectrum and coal blocks which
were made on the basis of first
com e first serve basis, and
promised that it would allot them on
open auction method with full
transparency. But after coming to
the power at the Centre, it made
amendments to the Mines and
Minerals Act so that all the coal
blocks allotted previously would
continue undisturbed. The
10
amendments also enabled the
state governments to sell off their
mineral resources.
Narendra Modi, who lambasted
the UPA government for its failure
in reviving the manufacturing
sector, promised to give a full thrust
to it in order to create jobs for the
youth. After becoming PM, he gave
a call of “Make in India”. To which
ever country he went visiting, he
asked the foreign capitalists to
come to India, setup manufacturing
here, export the products and earn
profits. He repeatedly promised to
provide all they wanted immediately
and to amend labour laws so that
the workers will be deprived of all
rights and can be hired and fired
at the whims of the capitalists. As a
part of implementing the “Make in
India’ policy, he opened up defence
production to foreign capital. As
India is importing more than 70
percent of arms and armaments,
he argued, the foreign arms
producers would setup manufacturing in India, so India would
save foreign exchange and will
have jobs created. This argument
is misleading as in practice, there
will be only assembling plants of
imported knocked down kits. For
example Foxxcon company which
closed down its existing plant in
India, throwing thousands of
workers jobless, now starting a new
company in AP, which take such
exactly the same task, assembling
the knocked down kits of mobiles.
‘Make in India” only turns the
manufacturing sector in India into
an appendage of foreign capital,
which utilises all resources-land,
electricity, minerals etc-and labour
cheaply, and remit the profits to its
parent country.
Unemployment and Poverty
The much tomtomed economic
growth did not bring about any
growth in jobs. The 15 million
people who migrated every year
during this period from villages to
cities in search of jobs were not
employed in the manufacturing
sector, but were forced to eke out
their lives in low paid daily wage
jobs without any security for job.
Informal employment like contract
and outsourcing had increased
even in the public sector units. The
MNCs with their massive production
facilities in the industrial slums of
Noida, Manesar, Sriperambattur,
Hosur etc are blatantly denying the
rights of workers, even to form
unions. The political leadership
and the state machinery stood with
the MNCs and unleashed brutal
repression on the workers as was
evident in the case of Maruti Suzuki
workers.
Poverty had engulfed more
people. After the ArindamSen
found that 70 % of the population
was living below the poverty line,
the UPA government tried to show
that more people had crossed the
poverty line during its rule through
manipulation of statistics. Yet other
reports of several national and
international agencies showed that
40 to 60 per cent of the people are
living in abject poverty.
Nearly 60 per cent of the
people are still dependent upon
agriculture. The crisis created by
the policies pursued by the UPA
government eroded the incomes
generated from the agriculture.
There were no alternative employment opportunities available for the
people. The UPA government had
not taken any step to improve the
incomes, effect structural changes
ie., land re-distribution or g