In a bizarre reversal of roles, it is beginning to look as though Indian industry will henceforth have to hold a brief for foreign investors against the rantings of politicians who threaten to be members of a BJP-led government. Thus FICCI chief K.K. Modi and the Confederation of Indian Industry each has had to defend the presence of foreign investors against the jingoism of George Fernandes. He, it seems, will not "drive out" foreign companies but would create conditions so strongly favouring domestic companies that the Kelloggs and the General Electrics would prefer to take their departure. If Fernandes persists in his immoderate speech, though he may try to pass it off as considered opinion, even the focus on helping domestic industry through policies might not prove necessary to win his aim.Fernandes's unwarranted declaration is a retrograde progression of the BJP's rhetoric hitherto that the MNCs that are already here will not be bothered but that new arrivals will be discouraged. That was itself anuntenably arbitrary position: how could the BJP justify discriminating between not just domestic and foreign investors but between MNCs themselves? Now, to hear Fernandes talk, even those who may have been here for decades have no business to feel safe. It is possible to take his statement as his trademark rhetoric which will not translate into action in today's India. But there are clouds on the horizon. It is worrying that a short step away from forming the government, the party's allies and some of its own - Murali Manohar Joshi has revived his swadeshi sloganeering - should be allowed to go to town with such irresponsible talk. That it is irresponsible is amply clear from the fact that it should have to be opposed by domestic industry groupings who, after all, are the ones affected by foreign investments. They have had the sense to recognise that foreign investment brings benefits such as technology and good business practices and in any case is far too small to threaten Indian industry. Would that theBJP's swadeshi brigade and some of its hawkish allies could do the same.The party's top leadership urgently needs to restrain loose talk from its members and friends if it is not to do involuntary economic damage and lose friends even before it has had a shot at forming the government. The potential for damage is not a figment of the imagination of those who have a vested interest in an open economy. The BJP can hardly have forgotten how its declaration that it would put a lock-in period for foreign institutional investors set off panic and it had to hastily retreat. Similar was the consternation caused by the BJP's outlandish idea that the rupee's right value was about 17 to the dollar. The fact of the matter, and thankfully so in India's current unstable environment, is that governments today have limited manoeuvrability in economic matters. It is not just global commitments - on which the party hotheads could encourage it to renege - but a country's own economic compulsions that ties their hands.Fernandes and his ilk no doubt will appreciate this better after a stint in government. The important thing is for the BJP not to let them air their irrelevant views quite so openly in the meantime.
