Pitching for globalisation

GURCHARAN DAS tells a tale of our times. A modern economic history, the book is anecdotal and travels back and forth in time as the author tries to relate the lessons of the past with the present. The story of Puru's defeat by Alexander, the rigidities of the caste system, the spread of Marwaris across the country - all are grist to his mill as he seeks to find answers to why India is still mired in poverty even as its East Asian neighbours have forged ahead.

The book traces India's coming of age in the industrial era along with the author's own growth from childhood to maturity and rise to being the chief executive of a multinational in India. The flavour of pre-Partition Punjab is vividly brought out as the young Das watches his grandfather and parents react to the fast moving developments prior to Independence. The shadowy figure of Nehru looms large over both the author's personal life and the public domain of the freedom struggle. Nehru's tragic legacy and the failure of his idealistic Fabian socialism is a dominant theme of the first two sections and reflects the bitterness of an entire generation at the God that failed them. The repercussions of Nehru's plan of creating a "mixed economy" are mentioned repeatedly as the author squarely lays the blame for much of India's later economic stress on Nehru's elegant shoulders.

The author's entry into adulthood and a career with the manufacturers of Vicks Vaporub moves into an analysis of this country's complex wholesale and retail distribution network for consumer goods. This segment holds many pointers for multinationals entering this country though many have already learnt these lessons the hard way. The need for "localisation" or "Indianisation" of foreign brands - a concept that Das learnt from close interaction with consumers of Vicks - has been grasped somewhat late in the day by many MNCs. But they are learning fast and among those now scrambling to Indianise are fast food giants like McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Domino's which now even offer special vegetarian Navaratna package meals. Despite the vociferous protests of the swadeshi lobby, Indian tastes have tended to influence American fast food rather than the reverse. Another classic case is that of Kentucky Fried Chicken which faced a battering, both physically and verbally, from activists in Bangalore. Market forces have dealt far more effectively with the chain than the virulent protestors. KFC has closed shop temporarily to revamp its marketing strategy to suit differing regional tastes. And prices of fast foods are dropping rapidly as MNCs realise that Indian consumers prefer piping hot dosas and spicy channa bhaturas to expensive burgers and pizzas. As Das points out, the unleashing of market forces can create a far more efficient and consumer-friendly environment than a controlled scenario.

The book becomes an interesting take-off point for a discussion on the release of the Indian economy from the constraints of the licence raj era. For a financial journalist having reported on these developments, the account of the behind the scenes activity is illuminating. Who could have believed that the minister, Mr. Rangarajan Kumaramangalam was ever a reluctant reformer. But Das's account, based on extensive interviews with the main players in the reforms drama of 1991, says: "Kumaramangalam was not a reformer and Manmohan Singh had to lobby hard to get him in the boat". It also highlights the fact that the real impetus for reforms came from the former Prime Minister, Mr. P.V. Narasimha Rao though Dr. Manmohan Singh was an enthusiastic executor along with Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Rao's Principal Secretary, Mr. A.N. Varma. Perhaps the present Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government, trying to push through the second phase of reforms, needs to look at Rao's mechanism in forging ahead with liberalisation. Even at that time, entrenched political interests fought hard to prevent the loss of the controlled economy with all its concomitant perquisites.

The book falters only in the last segment when Das speaks of the current economic scene. The dissertation on the future of the economy and the growth of knowledge-based industries is interesting up to a point but could have been much crisper. The account of the detergent wars, between Proctor and Gamble and Hindustan Lever, however, is interesting as it captures the nitty-gritty realities of capturing market shares.

Though difficult to categorise, India Unbound is bound to become an essential component of the reading list for anyone interested in the contemporary Indian economy and is searching for an answer to the author's question "if we were once rich, why are we now poor?"

SUSHMA RAMACHANDRAN

India Unbound, Gurcharan Das, Penguin, Rs. 495.

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