Globalization has not helped the Indian poor. This is evident from empirical data. In fact the concept of Globalization is being questioned after the economic meltdown in 2008. Even the champions of Globalization, the US and the rich EU countries, are looking inwards and tending to adopt protectionist policies. The Indian economy has been taken over by the big business, who in cohort with the Government, has looted the country and hit at the poor on the only thing they possess - land. What is happening in India is land grabbing of the first order. This is organized crime at its best. I fail to understand why Government should acquire land for billion dollor worth businessmen at a pittance. Government is not a real estate broker. These businessmen dont blink when they have to buy multi million dollar machinery from abroad or even million dollar yachts and private jets. But when it comes to paying market price for the land they want from the poor, they start talking about social benefits and run to the governments aid. The businessmen should negotiate directly with the landlords, agree to a price which could and should be above the market price. When the industrialists acquire a company, they do a valuation which is based on Discounted Cash Flow, taking the future cashflows in to account, and a premium over DCF. They should adopt a similar approach when they buy land. The land might be a factor input for the industrialist, but for the agriculturalist it is a recurring revenue generating asset, much like a business is to a businessman.
We need to have a national debate on the structure of the economy we should adopt. While we need industrialization, we have a problem of insufficient land to further this dream. We missed the bus on industrialization 3 decades ago. Maybe we should look at investing in LDCs, export raw materials from India along with technical labour and have the LDC as a manufacturing base. As long as we stick to the whole excercise in the realms of business, we wont be accused of colonisation. But we are not even thinking about alternate options of economic development. And therein lies the failure of our policy makers.
