Commentary/ Mani Shankar Aiyar
If business becomes politics for the Indian
capitalist, why should it be any less so for the foreign capitalist?
When, therefore, the foreigner
becomes a stake-holder in our economy, it will not be long before
he (or do I mean she?) becomes a stake-holder in our polity.
Rebecca Mark has taught us how this can be achieved. She remote controls even the remote
controller. Foreign stake-holders will have quite as many political
demands as the Dalit Peedit Sangh or the CII. Liberalisers of
the CII kind hate this argument because they say neither they
nor the foreign investor is in politics; they are in business.
The day of both Jagat Seth and the East India Company are, they
insist, over.
But if business becomes politics for the Indian
capitalist, why should it be any less so for the foreign capitalist?
Deep pockets are useful for many things, including making deep
pockets even deeper. It matters little whether the pocket has been
sewed on in Fifth Avenue, Manhattan or by the darzi round
the corner. Both need to be filled and
both need to be deepened.
If, therefore, CII can become the third
chamber of our democracy in the 50th year of Independence,
there is no reason why Chase or Citibank cannot
evolve into the fourth chamber well before we are into our centenary
celebrations.
There is something demeaning to national self-respect
about running scared of the foreign hand. But it is self-defeating
to imagine that foreign capital can enter the country without
assuming a political role.
It will. It has.
The central point
of the BJP-Shiv Sena election campaign -- throwing Enron into the
Arabian Sea -- has itself been thrown into the Arabian Sea. In
the liberalised/globalised marketplace, it will not take too long
for the politician to discover just how much deeper is the firangi
pocket than the desi pocket. After all, Bill Clinton is in trouble
not because of the millions he took from Americans but the
billions he collected from strange-looking Asian characters with
slit eyes and slit pockets.
The economy cannot get globalised
without its polity also getting globalised. Perhaps then will
be the time for ASSOCHAM to become Only Whites again. And oust
CII from its determining role in the destiny of the nation.
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