Bjps Swadeshi Means Putting National Interest First

The concept of Swadeshi has been redefined as pragmatic economics serving the nations interests and objectives in a competitive global market in a paper presented to senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders by S Gurumurthy, the head of the RSS Swadeshi Jagran Manch.

The paper was presented and discussed during the partys four-day camp for senior leaders at Jhinjholi in Haryana last weekend. It does not project swadeshi as an instrument to protect local industry, although it does make the point that foreign investment only accounted for 1.5 per cent of capital invested in India between 1991 and 1996.

Expatriat remittances from the Gulf have brought $ 50 billion into the country during the 1980s, he holds. They, not the IMF, saved India in the 1980s, he says, adding that Indias social community takes a great burden off the welfare state.

Gurumurthys paper calls for a war against the World Trade Organisation, to either mend it or end it. It suggests massive non-tariff barriers and a war strategy, pointing out that commercial war is the least honestly conducted war.

Constantly invoking the examples of Japan, Korea and China, Gurumurthy makes the point that these countries have shown the way to import technology, compete in the global market and create national wealth, always keeping the national interest in mind. Swadeshi knows no ideology other than nationalism and national interest, he says.

He argues that the country was mistakenly taken towards socialism, resulting in the loss of four decades, before the establishment dumped it and turned to market capitalism. He rejects both capitalism and communism, calling it the political, economic and civilisational life of India, rooted in Indian nationalism.

Gurumurthy rejects the current ideas in the west, whether those of Francis Fukuyama on the west vs the rest, of Alvin Toffler on a clash between pre-modern, modern and post-modern economies, Samuel Huntington on clashes among major civilisations, or Lester Thurow on the collapse of society and campitalism.

He says the swadeshi view of modernisation is to evolve and build India without Westernisation. He points to the Swadeshi belief that nature is sacred and deserves respect, unlike the Abrahamic religious view that nature is secular and it is intended for exploitation and enjoyment.

He says Western ways result in unbridled individulaism, social fragmentation, the market as the only arbiter of human affairs, the erosion of national identities and national consciousness, the mindless pursuit of materialism and money over culture and nature and dharma.

It also involves the centralisation of the world through trade and finance to maintain the lead of the west over the rest, he adds. An unquestioning acceptance of this poses a great national danger, he holds.

To counter it, he says, Japan, China and Malaysia have promoted powerful national consciousness and deep-seated distrust of the west.

Gurumurthy calls for bold nationalist leadership, coordination between government and industry on the model of Japans Ministry of International Trade and Industry, corporate groupings to deal with global giants, a rejection of westernisation and coordinated anti-WTO lobbying.

He also calls for a strong agricultural base, pointing to Chinas superior progress in this, and protection of mass employment sectors, promotion of personal and professional services sectors, since India has great competance in these, smaller towns and a powerful military establishment.