Resurrect Swadeshi Movement to confront WTO — Brahmananda

Brahmanada, a known centrist liberal, seemed to have some trouble reconciling conflicting propositions, not as much as due to lack of economic logic as his unwillingness to explicitly criticise the govwernment’s economic policies.

For instance, Brahmanada’s thesis to get round WTO’s insistence on withdrawal of protection tariffs on foreign consumer goods seeking Indian markets veers round to a political solution. Since India is committed to be part of the WTO, protection tariffs cannot be imposed. This would mean that the local industry producing the same goods would be at a disavantage, and capital will avoid such industries resulting in continued high incidence of unemployment. So how does one get around this problem?

Brahmananda says, let the foreign consumer goods come in free from protection tariffs. The answer is in the Indian consumer refusing to buy these goods in favour of deshi commodities. This means a return to the Swadeshi Movement which Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai ushered in durung British rule. Brahmanada notes that the movement grew to such strength that the British government had to appoint a Fiscal Commission which, in partial acceptance of the Telang-Ranade-Joshi thesis, recommended discriminatory protection.

Brahmananda dwelt at length on the economic propositions of Kashinath Tryambak Telang, furthered by Mahadev Govind Ranade crystalised in the formulations of Ganesh Venkatesh Joshi. Joshi’s novelty was that since surplus agricultural labour was available, this ought to be transferred and settled in industry.

The eminent professor was quick to address the apparent contradiction of that hypothesis as applied to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The agricultural revolution in the first two states did not help to solve the problem of unemployment. This was because, instead of investing surplus agricultural capital on industry to provide consumer goods thereby creating employment, the capital instead was used to buy foreign consumer goods that flooded Indian markets with the age of liberalisation. Surplus agricultural capital did not induce labour mobility.

It was in this context the Swadeshi Movement should be resurrected and all political parties should come together to influence the choice of Indian consumers in favour of the domestic product against the WTO protected’ invasion of foreign goods into India.

Brahmananda was in effect unifying the various Indain economic propositions set out by Telang, Ranade and Joshi as modified by the impact of Dadabhai’s Naoroji’s thesis to solve the problem of capital shortage and the restraint on population growth first advocated by B T Ranadive in 1930.

Brahmanada sounded a warning with respect to population growth. Even of the rest of India’s population stabilised by 2025, the population UP was not likely to stabilse even by the turn of the new century without imposition of restraint. “I am frightened about the future,” Brahmanada said.

The economic models were already available in India and all that needed to be done was to bridge the traditional gaps in the models. Integration was the key and this is what Brahmanada sought to do: “When you are young you are dialectic,” he said, “as you grow old you look at synthesis” – a remark that brought smiles on the visages of what was largely a gathering of economists.