We draw the attention of India’s merit-mongers who live in a fool’s paradise but are not tired of boasting about India’s industrial and economic achievements. The following excerpts are reproduced from “India’s largest circulated journal”, India Today, (Jan.31, 1990) run by the very same upper caste merit-mongers who led the recent violent caste war against the Mandal Commission. The article headlined, “Indian industry way below par – Goods can’t compete in foreign markets,” proves by giving facts and figures that during 40 years of upper caste “merited rule” India has become a beggar country. Indian upper caste industrialists want “reservations” to sell their goods inside India. Otherwise, it will not be sold because of the competition from Japanese goods. But the same people oppose reservations to SC/STs. World economic forum dumps India at the bottom among developing world competitors – EDITOR.
When the Bombay -based Godrej Soaps cast a roving eye on the vast export market, it came to a gloomy conclusion. Its soaps would have been a wash-out in the market place. For one simple reason: the cost of its main raw materials-oils and fats-was three times higher than what its competitors abroad were paying. Automobile giant Mahindra and Mahindra might be one of the big boys at home, but out there in the big, bad world, it’s a mere toddler. The company has a capacity to produce barely 10,000 lightweight trucks annually when no Japanese competitor would be comfortable with anything less than eight times that amount. Steel-maker Mukand Ltd sure has cheaper
labour than its international rivals. But that doesn’t help its export effort much. For when cheap labour comes tied with low productivity-Mukand produces 225 tonnes of steel per man year when its peers abroad manage at least four times as much – the results is higher cost. Godrej, Mahindra and Mukand aren’t the only ones finding the international market tough to crack. And for more reasons than mentioned above. Cocooned behind the protective walls of high import duties and non-tariff barriers that almost eliminate the icy chill of competition, few manufacturers contemplated selling beyond home shores in the past.
