"The possibility that the small traders and retailers, who carry out their trade from the market, might be able to get together and mobilize finances to buy or lease out the market is not even being explored. This would not only prevent the wiping out of their source of livelihood, but would also make them stakeholders in it."
The latest neo-liberal onslaught on the lives and livelihoods of working people in India is taking place in the retail sector. After agriculture, the retail sector employs the largest number of people in India. Of the 40 million people involved in retailing as an economic activity, 0.5 million are in organized retail whereas around 39.5 million people are employed in unorganized retail trade. This includes all sorts of small retailing operations ranging from neighbourhood "mom-and-pop" shops to street vendors to small farmers who travel to cities daily to sell their produce to the small-scale transporters who transport the retail goods. These 40 million adults in the retail sector roughly translates into 160 million dependents, making the retail sector the source of livelihood for approximately a sixth of India's population. The decade of liberalization, which has seen stagnation in the agrarian economy and large scale job losses in the manufacturing sector, has pushed more and more people into different aspects of retailing in absence of any other opportunities.
On the other hand, the small but burgeoning middle class in India, with immense spending power compared to the vast majority of the poor people in the country, has been eyed for quite some time by both multinational corporations involved in the retail trade and by Indian corporations which want to enter the arena sensing it to be a source of huge profits. Walmart from USA, known for its hated business practices, Metro AG of Germany and Carrefour of France have all been trying to enter the Indian retail market. As the Indian government has still not allowed foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector, Walmart is trying to enter the Indian market in a joint venture with Bharti, an Indian company.
Leading the charge among Indian corporations in this field is the Reliance Industries limited, which has opened a chain of retail stores called "Reliance Fresh" in most of the major cities in India. Other Indian corporations that have gone into the retail sector are Bharti, ITC, Godrej, Big Bazaar and Subhiksha. Reliance has an ambitious agri-retail plan, variously described as "farm-to-table" or "field-to-fork", whereby it will directly source produce from the fields, route it through its national distribution centres and bring it to the urban consumers in the ambience of air-conditioned stores displaying packaged produce under artificial illumination. Being able to handle large volumes and to absorb initial losses, they can sell cheap and therefore undercut the market, pushing small vendors and groceries out of business, as happened over most of USA. ... Full story
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |