Foreign Scribes Find Advani Waffling On Economic Issues On

BJP president LK Advani yesterday sought to calm the foreign investors community through a reassuring statement on foreign investment during an interaction with members of the Foreign Correspondents Club.

The BJP will not roll back the economic reforms instituted. If at all, this process will be further speeded up. Consequently, foreign companies seeking to make investments in India will not be hindered just as they will not be favoured, as was often the case so far, his written statement read.

If he wanted to convince those who mould opinion in major investing countries that a BJP government would be good for their interests, Advanis success was at best partial. At least three correspondents of major Western publications said he seemed unclear about economic issues.

 

Waffling was a word two of them used. One pointed out that Advani did not seem to have worked out his partys reaction to the currency crises in south-east Asia. Another pointed out that he repeated the BJPs new coinage, prospective, not retrospective, but she added that they say one thing and then do another.

Advani was persuasive rather than assertive. In the ultimate analysis, the wherewithal for Indias development must come from within. We are therefore opposed to the notion nurtured so far that foreign investment is our only hope. Foreign investment is welcome, (but) it cannot be given advantageous terms at the cost of domestic industry and capital, he said.

He explained the limited protection the BJP has promised to Indian industries. Economic liberalisation makes sense to us only when Indian industries also have a fair chance to become global players. The process of economic transformation is a delicately balanced one and entails exposing our firms to foreign competition in a calibrated manner and by allowing them to gain a counter-balancing competitive advantage derived from having economies of scale. Globalisation makes sense when it is a two-way process and not when only Indian markets are to be dominated by global corporations.

Some foreign correspondents thought the leading point for their reports was Advanis reiteration of the partys determination to exercise the nuclear option and to induct nuclear weapons. Advani was non-commital when one of them asked if India would conduct a test explosion like it did in 1974.