‘Make In India an old mantra’

AHMEDABAD: ‘Make in India’, a marketing strategy promoted by the central government as the idea of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is actually an old mantra. A study by an IIM Ahmedabad professor reveals that ‘Make in India’ was very much there during India’s colonial period and the post-independence decades till 1991.
The paper, ‘Make in India: Re-chanting the Mantra with a Difference’ by Prof Satish Deodhar traces the origin and idea of Make in India through time and reveals that the story of ‘Make in India’ evolved in 1901 when economists like Dadabhai Nauroji lamented the economic drain of India by the colonial masters.
Raw material was being procured cheaply from Indians and shipped out to get it processed in England, only to be shipped back and sold to Indians for a profit. At the turn of the 19th century it was Laxmanrao Kirloskar who produced India’s first iron plough and Sir Jamshedji Tata’s efforts paved way for India’s first steel mill.
The next phase of Make in India began with the advent of independence in 1947. As East India Company became our master, the ‘Make only in India and only for India’ principle was introduced.
To achieve this, Nehru sent Dr Mahalonobis to US and France where he interacted with Wassily Leontief and the French Marxists, respectively. Nehru introduced central planning, command and control economy (License Raj), and extreme restrictions on imports and exports but the experiment of a highly controlled economy in making only in India and making only for India failed.
By 1991, the consequences of decades of license raj, planning, and autarkic worldview had reached its nadir and the Make in India mantra failed.
“And now, the old Make in India mantra, which was not heard during the 1991 liberalization process, has been pronounced loud and clear from the ramparts of red fort. What does one make of this initiative? PM arrived in a Mahindra Scorpio car for his swearing-in ceremony, however, by the time he addressed the nation on 15 August 2014, he had begun using BMWs. He even sports a Mont blanc pen which he used at the swearing-in ceremony. Therefore, the message in today’s context certainly cannot be autarkic in nature,” says the paper.
The study suggests that if the campaign has to work, then the government should provide lubricants like efficient judiciary, protection of property rights, good civil administration, and, importantly, market friendly government policies. Secondly, when the markets fail to deliver, the government should interfere.