Swadeshi...
I remember as a child, getting this pamphlet at our home once, urging people to buy swadeshi stuff. I laughed at the prospect, dismissing swadeshi stuff as substandard…Imported was always better. I also remember the time when Chinese goods started to trickle into the Indian market…it started with Chinese made Diwali decorations…strands of musical lights that we proudly displayed at our home…then came the flood of Chinese toys, furniture… and now almost every thing you wear, use or eat is made in China. It’s true that the world has shifted its polluting manufacturing industry to
The point I want to stress is that made at home is not always substandard…it’s funny that whenever I see a good quality dress (read expensive) in a mall here in the US, it’s without exception always made in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan…it’s a pity that our fellow brethren slog at sweatshops making expensive clothes for high end designers and are paid pennies for it, and those clothes sell at profit rates of several hundreds here…It’s a shame…
We are not only selling ourselves at a very cheap price, we are standardizing our manufacturing and loosing out on the traditional stuff that’s very unique to our country. Why would an artisan work on a traditional art where he earns very little, when he can get a job at a manufacturing plant making shoes or t-shirts for big labels? How would the farmer who owns a small farm earn his living, when the big corporations buy his produce at below market rates and sell it at a huge profit at big box grocery stores? How would a poor farmer make any profit if the only way to make profit is to use expensive fertilizers and pesticides, and use genetically engineered seeds to increase yield?
‘Farmers markets’ are a rage here …and it reminds me of the “Sunday bazaar” back home where the farmers set up their own little stalls selling produce picked that morning…It cannot get any fresher than that. No chemicals used, no preservatives added, no color enhancers applied, no radiation done…the good old days. Americans are realizing the importance of organic products now…and making an effort to buy organic and buy local as much as possible, while we in India are turning to the big box stores selling imported goods. We are aiming at providing Coke and Pepsi in the remotest villages in
It’s funny how the world looks up to the West for trends…maybe the organic bug will catch up in
Comments
*Artisans who work on traditional arts like bandhej, lucknowi chikan, bandhani etc still get paid & are respected because their art is many a times symbolic of their geographical areas & culture.
*If Ann taylor or Banana Republic can make anything 100 times cheaper in India, yes they are going to bcoz thats capitalism. Also, I have heard GAP pays Indian worker 2-3 times more than what raymond does. So it's almost a win win deal for everybody but us; we keep feeling bad to have to pay 50$ for something which cud be bought back home for $10.
*I completely agree with u that food/cosmetics/medicines shud have some kind of a tab when they are imported from china or elsewhere, bcoz where chaos persists (read India), its better safe than sorry :)
1. I think we should have learned from them. We import from them, because we are not able to mgf. goods at lesser price.
2. Quality of import MUST be tested, but this is duty of our government.
Regarding Indian artists -
1. Might be they are getting paid 5$ (250 Rs) for 100$ thing sold in US. In my opinion it does not matter to them, what is end price, thing is they are getting paid better than they used to get.
2. Long back I met one person who is working with potters community in Kerala. He is helping those people sell their talent directly rather than going through brands.
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I seriously think that TRUE GLOBALISATION can be achieved only when countries do exports based on their skill and talent rather than Cheapness of their products.
It is a very good read about transformation of India's economic policy from socialist to capitalist.