A long time back I met a person from MP. He was very well-read, learned, and extremely good at English, however, he always preferred to communicate in Hindi only. I asked him “Why so?” He told me that Hindi is his mother tongue and it is the national language. Even though he was a hardcore nationalist, he was a great scholar, an avid learner, and a voracious reader. He never spoke anything against English or ever asked that English should be banned.
Whereas I have met another section of so-called nationalist people from the Hindi heartland who are vociferous against English and strongly in favour of thrusting Hindi as the medium of study throughout the nation. I can understand their demand for Hindi, but I couldn’t understand why they are so much against English. Later on, I found the reason for their dislike of Hindi. They find English difficult and are not ready to put effort into learning the language. Not that they are spectacularly good in Hindi, even though it is their mother tongue. So you can understand that their love for Hindi or hate for English is not driven out of patriotism or love for the nation. Your love for your mother tongue doesn’t restrict or stop you from learning other languages.
The reason for Modi Ji's privatization is also the same. It is not driven out of any nationalism or love for the nation. Rather true nationalism would have prevented him from privatizing the national properties.
In principle Nationalism and Privatisation, both are contrast in nature. In nationalism - the nation gets the highest priority whereas in privatization - an individual entity gets the priority. Modi Ji’s privatization drive is oozing out of his incompetence to run the PSUs & PSBs successfully and his extraordinary love for fellow crony corporate houses. Privatization or encouraging industrial growth in the private sector doesn’t mean that selling out all the national properties.
Look at the biggest of the MNCs across the world - they have not created their empire by buying out national properties. Rather they have created their own unique field and empire - Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Hyundai, Samsung, Tesla, Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Alphabet, Walt Disney Company, Mastercard, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Visa Inc., Johnson & Johnson, etc.
Let me share some data about the number of public sector employees as a percentage of the total workforce. Information is based on ILO. The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and oldest specialized agency of the UN. The ILO has 187 member states: 186 out of 193 UN members.
As per ILO, India has one of the lowest public sector employment sizes in comparison to the total workforce. Only 3.8% of the total workforce is employed in the public sector in India. In Bangladesh it is 8%, in the UK it is 21.5%, the USA it is 13.3%, Japan 7.7%, Germany 12.9%, France 20.5%, Bhutan 17.8%, South Korea 10.3%, Sri Lanka 15.1%, South Africa 15.9%, Russia 40.6%, Malaysia 15.1%. The only country I could find in the comparable range with India is Colombia at 3.7%. However, Columbia's data is from 2019, whereas India’s data is from 2014. By now it must have gone down below 3%. You can see that much advanced countries like UL, US Germany, etc as well as our neighborhood have been able to maintain a much larger public sector. Whereas Modi Ji is desperate to sell off the entire public sector in the name of capitalism.
The public sector doesn't mean a lack of efficiency always, nor public enterprises are enemies of the nation. It's the wrong narrative of the Modi government that the privatization of public properties is the only way to bring development and economic growth. It is true that a few of the PSUs have failed to be profitable or running at a loss. But it is nothing exceptional. Private banks also have failed and generated lakhs of crores of NPA. Just check the total accumulated loss of the PSUs and compare it with the Bnaks’ NPA. Even after writing of NPA worth around 14 lakhs crores, our current NPA is still hovering around 6 lakh crores. NPA is the loss made by the private enterprises. Both are taxpayers' money. In comparison to the loss/NPA created by the private enterprises, losses made by the PSU would be only around 10%. These 14 lakh crores, that were written off and another 6 lakh crore NPA has been generated by the private enterprises only. But we are jumping about that as privatization would solve everything.
The government is giving logic that privatization will improve efficiency, if so please ask Modi Ji why the Fortune 500 companies are failing?
Since 2000, 52% of companies in the Fortune 500 have either gone bankrupt, been acquired, or ceased to exist. US corporations in the S&P 500 in 1958 remained in the index for an average of 61 years. By 1980, the average tenure of an S&P 500 firm was 25 years, and by 2011 that average shortened to 18 years based on seven-year rolling averages.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) closed 465 failed banks in the USA from 2008 to 2012. If after privatization Indian banks start failing, who will take responsibility? Who will return our money? Modi Ji? Or he will again switch over to nationalization?
Out of the top five largest banks in the world, four are from China and they are public sector banks. Not necessary that the public sector means inefficiency nor does the private sector mean only efficiency. Otherwise, 52% of Fortune 500 organizations wouldn’t have failed when they are run by top-notch management professionals without any political influence.
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