Economic Depression

By Geoffery *

Conventional wars are costlier in men, money and material. Therefore nations have devised ways of resorting to unconventional wars to meet their strategic needs. It could be anything: proxy war, economic war or any thing else with an aim to save crucial resources, avoid international flak and deny or accept the blame in case need be.

Of late India has been a target. Because other nations, both with in the continent and out side the continent, are viewing India as stringent competitor. It is a fact that the developed, developing and under developed nations envisage the emerging, vibrant and resurgent new India and its role in new world economic order.

Financial tsunami has hit the global markets and our country too has its share of its ramifications. Still Indian economy has been rated as resilient economy to with stand this global crisis stoically.

Recent 3 days siege of Mumbai (26 Nov to 28 Nov 08) has thrown up many lessons. Initial estimates say that this has resulted in a loss of approx 50000 crores plus Forex loss of about 20 billion dollars.

It does not include the losses due to intangibles like fear psychosis, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and their all encompassing and prolonging effects. These losses are spread across markets, entertaining, shoping and food sectors etc. Tourism has been worst hit.

Most of the air lines and hotels are receiving cancellation orders. This incident has given a message to the world that India is not a safe destination given the number of attacks that have affected the country in the past.

Important aspect of the siege are two; one, that few fugitives could keep the nation guessing, hoping and praying( for 72 Hrs) for their near and dear ones taken hostages at Taj, Oberoi and Nariman house. Two, that hostages killed were multinational i.e. Indians (as always have been), Americans, Germans, Japanese, English and Israelis. This has garnered international response to such crisis unlike earlier.

India had been facing such crises since the beginning of new millennium. The complete spectrum of happenings reflect that chosen targets have been metros or places frequented by visitors e.g. Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Mumbai etc.

These are also the places where visible symbols of progress are located e.g. Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and Defense Laboratories etc. Mumbai siege has been rated the biggest terror attack ever in the country. This is also compared to 9/11 of USA since two iconic buildings Taj and Oberoi had been attacked.

Mumbai is an example of direct attacking by visible foreign elements. But there had been other attacks that had been perpetrated, by vested interests, in Northern India, Central India and North East Region (NER) and the country has been bleeding in many ways. Out of total 28 states almost 19 are affected by perpetrated violence today or one can say 55 to 60 % of the country is affected by this. The involvement of DGFI of Bangladesh, ISI of Pakistan and Chinese elements is well known and documented.

As per reports Assam blast ( 30 Oct 08) finger points towards China. Every one knows the role played by these agencies in training Ultras operating against our country and also provision of arms to them. The loss in Mumbai is estimable because financial capital is already at the helm of development.

What about the losses of the regions those are under developed but suffering from constant violence? What about the money that is invested in these regions for development but perpetrated violence does not let it happen? Despite investing tons of exchequers money the development in these regions is abysmal. These regions and areas are at the same level of development as they were many years back.

In NER can the latent positive role of unexplored human potential, unexplored natural resource and unexplored natural potential be ignored? This is all due to perpetrated violence. Human resource of the region is raw, simple and like clay that can be molded to the developing needs of the region.

Besides this future generations are also growing in the shadow of Klashnikovs and Improvised Explosive Devices. They are growing with fear psychosis and PTSD. Can the financial loss of this be estimated? This region has un harnessed potential of hydropower ( 50000m MW), natural gas ( 151068 billion cubic feet) and coal (865 million tones) and Uranium etc.

Can the delay in exploring these resources and buying the same by using forex reserves be measured in economic terms? Can the delay caused by violence in developing much needed road and rail communication and its impact on development be estimated in economic terms?

Wish it could be! Then alone one could have learnt the financial impact of the violence. This is not counting the resources committed to contain violence.

What has come out clearly is the lack of Political Will to find solutions due to political reasons. Otherwise home minister of Maharashtra ( RR Patil)would not have made irresponsible statement " Bare Shehron mein chhottee chhotee batein hoti rehti hain or small incidents like this keep happening in big cities."

The same gentleman refused to accept responsibility of his failure. Shame on such leaders. It clearly indicates that our politicians are more of POLITI- SCIONS (being adept at dividing the society) and DEALERS but not leaders (only arrangement of letters differs).

The WILL of the elected representatives need to match the expectations of the represented and synergized with by suitable action, otherwise present euphoria of being able to withstand financial crisis may turn to nightmare by evitable losses due to violence that will become cumulative with current crisis.