I do not have idioms and expert concepts to read the economic situation of Nepal, but I do know that many of us will prefer to go for what the East Asian countries went for, or for that matter, what some of the western Indian states have opted for during the last few decades. I also know that a state like West Bengal does not fare economically well in comparison to the states like Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, or Gujarat. Those who have even little knowledge of the modern day success stories of regions and nations know that why such western Indian states have done so very well and why a state like West Bengal is falling behind.
Who decides which way to go? Be like what an Indian state Gujarat has been doing or do like what Bengal does with ambivalent viewpoints of development (as reflected in chasing away some industrial openings from the state). I was reading the financial development and economic growth of developed Indian states. Keeping aside the states like Bihar, Assam, Rajasthan, Utter Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, if one takes example of the developed states like Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal, there are some striking figures. West Bengal has marginal difference between credit and output in terms with average economic growth whereas Gujarat’s output is greater than the credit. I take examples of the states which have been faring phenomenally well in India.
Furthermore, putting aside the GDP and all other details of the Indian states, take examples of two of our economic power houses. From opening up to the multinationals and globalized and late-capitalistic modes of development, they are the nations of future wealth. They have multiple answers in favor of their developmental programs against the problems of remittance, cheap labor exploitation, and environment hazards.
These two countries are negotiating between the harms of globalization and its material benefits, advantages of the flow of trade, material and people, and the ills of technology dominant over nature. China has outwitted even the most powerful nations by opting for globalization against the traditional Marxist analysis of capitalism as pathological or a kind of Western imperialist domination. Indian economy has outsmarted Western capitalistic policies of dividing and segmenting the world into economic zones. These are not my arguments; I am simply paraphrasing the global economic trends.
My write-up should be considered as a series of questions to those who oppose modern modes of development. They must provide alternatives to Nepali economic developments instead of running the country against the prevalent globally feared Chinese and Indian economic, industrial, and technological logic.
What is the Nepali economic stand then? Traditional Marxist, utopian agrarian, or anti-colonial-Gandhian? Does the national politics have policies to bring forth ideological and material changes in Nepali social organization? Does it have alternatives to the market structure strengthened by multinational companies? Does Nepal have better economic plans to challenge Indian interests in Vodafone, Hyundai, Samsung, and Chinese interests in Volkswagen, McDonald, and Boeing?
While discussing an article by Kristoffel Lieten, a professor at the University of Amsterdam who is in charge of Development Sociology, a scholar friend of mine who too is well-versed in globalization and multinational companies’ role in the third world told me that the anti-globalist economic theorists mostly and very correctly list the disadvantages of globalization. They say (like Lieten points out) that globalization has not led to an increasing share of investments and trade going to the countries like Nepal, Rwanda, and Togo. Multinationals have in particular countries and in particular fields focus the long-term dynamics and hence they create asymmetry.
The problem is that there are thousands of discourse against the ills of globalization and development but there are countable alternatives that also in smaller scales but none which can promise comprehensive alternatives to the developmental notions of globalization.
There are Nepalis who are still hopeful by claiming that our political systems make the country poor but we are not poor by essence. Good to be hopeful! Good to ponder that the political system will be replaced by better political structures! But our political institutions neither understand how to welcome even a tiny economic liberal concept of our neighboring countries nor have logic to resist and then implement alternative modes of economic development. Nepali political institution does not have logical economic plans.
By the time the politicians street fight against foreign investments without alternative plans, by the time they do not give policy decisions to educated economic minds of the country, there will be irreparable damage caused by what the economic time bomb Krishna Regmi refers to in his article in Aug 26, Republica.
Since I am a disciplinary outsider to such issues, I may have argued without contextual economic idioms. But my write-up should be considered as a series of questions to those who oppose modern modes of development. They must provide alternatives to Nepali economic developments instead of running the country against the prevalent globally feared Chinese and Indian economic, industrial, and technological logic.
orungupto@gmail.com
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