I ordered Xiaomi Mi Band slightly before I read the news about nation wide protest against the purchase of China products. Have received it today. Couple of days before I read about a statement from China that India can just bark but cannot built quality products better and cheaper than China.
My first reaction was full of anger against China. But after sometime I realized that the statement is completely valid with respect to a huge range of product categories. Suppose if Intel or AMD stops supplying processors to India, what would happen? Recently I was discussing this with one of my colleague and friend Ashu. He told that China has almost developed their own processor. US defence uses all hardwares, firmwares and softwares exclusively built by them and for them. Now look at the state of India, what does India do?
We can't even do basic VLSI fabrications here in India. My colleagues from Micro Electronics research need to send their fabrication specifications to other countries and need to wait for 2-4 months to get one version of their research developed. This consumes a lot of their research time and continuity.
What should we do then? Should we boycott Chinese products? Would boycotting a product serve our purpose? In fact most of us don't even know what our purpose behind boycotting is. If a poor hawker gets more profit margin by selling Chinese products then obviously s/he would sell the Chinese products even if s/he needs to tell lies to her/his customers. Even we saw this in one recent news report where a hawker was saying that he tells lie to his customers that his products are from India and not from China. We can see a lot of such examples which makes it clear that mostly the exercise of boycotting is purposeless.
As a customer, I would like to enjoy better and cheaper products. If my government has allowed the China to export to India, 6 times more than what India exports to China, then how would I know what has to be done? What benefit would I get from boycotting it?
One nice question at this stage is, "Is boycotting a better response to China or should we do something else?" China is producing better domestic products than us, its a fact of the current time. AND PLEASE ACCEPT that we are DEPENDENT on China for such a fine quality and cheap products. Neither Indians nor most of the other countries are building such products.
So whats the conclusion of the above five paragraphs? The conclusion is that we Indians are dependent on many foreign products. In other words we are not "Independent". So here is the big news: "This is another war for independence" and measures such as boycotting would not solve the problem. The only and ultimate solution is to improve our own qualities and capabilities.
So what should each and everyone of us do? In my opinion, instead of thinking of useless tactics of boycotting, lets pledge to improve our own possibilities. I am an Educational Technologist. I would ensure that in next fews years at least a thousand people around me would become independent as far as their Education is concerned. A medical practitioner should ensure that the patients should be given independence by enjoying better healthcare. A railway booking clerk should ensure that the railway customers should feel being in an independent nation by getting a respectful customer service. Males in the society should ensure that the Females should feel independent while walking alone in any part of the country. A cleanliness worker should ensure that people should get fresh air without getting trapped within the restraints of filthiness. A teacher should ensure that her/his students become better individuals of tomorrow. So on and so forth.
If any kind of product or service is weaker in our country then we would have to dependent on foreign agencies. Mind it! Dependence is not just political in nature. It could be political, it could be economical, it could be innovational, it could even be cultural. "Bharat Maataa Ki Jai" is needed but remember that our Bharat Maataa is still not "fully" independent.
My first reaction was full of anger against China. But after sometime I realized that the statement is completely valid with respect to a huge range of product categories. Suppose if Intel or AMD stops supplying processors to India, what would happen? Recently I was discussing this with one of my colleague and friend Ashu. He told that China has almost developed their own processor. US defence uses all hardwares, firmwares and softwares exclusively built by them and for them. Now look at the state of India, what does India do?
We can't even do basic VLSI fabrications here in India. My colleagues from Micro Electronics research need to send their fabrication specifications to other countries and need to wait for 2-4 months to get one version of their research developed. This consumes a lot of their research time and continuity.
What should we do then? Should we boycott Chinese products? Would boycotting a product serve our purpose? In fact most of us don't even know what our purpose behind boycotting is. If a poor hawker gets more profit margin by selling Chinese products then obviously s/he would sell the Chinese products even if s/he needs to tell lies to her/his customers. Even we saw this in one recent news report where a hawker was saying that he tells lie to his customers that his products are from India and not from China. We can see a lot of such examples which makes it clear that mostly the exercise of boycotting is purposeless.
As a customer, I would like to enjoy better and cheaper products. If my government has allowed the China to export to India, 6 times more than what India exports to China, then how would I know what has to be done? What benefit would I get from boycotting it?
One nice question at this stage is, "Is boycotting a better response to China or should we do something else?" China is producing better domestic products than us, its a fact of the current time. AND PLEASE ACCEPT that we are DEPENDENT on China for such a fine quality and cheap products. Neither Indians nor most of the other countries are building such products.
So whats the conclusion of the above five paragraphs? The conclusion is that we Indians are dependent on many foreign products. In other words we are not "Independent". So here is the big news: "This is another war for independence" and measures such as boycotting would not solve the problem. The only and ultimate solution is to improve our own qualities and capabilities.
So what should each and everyone of us do? In my opinion, instead of thinking of useless tactics of boycotting, lets pledge to improve our own possibilities. I am an Educational Technologist. I would ensure that in next fews years at least a thousand people around me would become independent as far as their Education is concerned. A medical practitioner should ensure that the patients should be given independence by enjoying better healthcare. A railway booking clerk should ensure that the railway customers should feel being in an independent nation by getting a respectful customer service. Males in the society should ensure that the Females should feel independent while walking alone in any part of the country. A cleanliness worker should ensure that people should get fresh air without getting trapped within the restraints of filthiness. A teacher should ensure that her/his students become better individuals of tomorrow. So on and so forth.
If any kind of product or service is weaker in our country then we would have to dependent on foreign agencies. Mind it! Dependence is not just political in nature. It could be political, it could be economical, it could be innovational, it could even be cultural. "Bharat Maataa Ki Jai" is needed but remember that our Bharat Maataa is still not "fully" independent.
My another friend and colleague Anurag, along with working on his research, he has also been teaching many poor children for free. In this way he has actually been working towards India's freedom for many years now. My another colleague and friend Yogendra has been working on teaching Computer Science and programming in vernacular (Hindi) language through online videos (LEARN BY WATCH). My other research colleagues work day in and out towards their research goals - all their research are towards improving the state of education. All of these people are trying and doing their best to bring independence to everyone with their respective areas of expertise.
Now you decide, whether you want to participate in a "boycott movement" which would anyway not succeed in this era of demand and poverty, or you would like to do your best for this country, for this globe with whatever expertize you have.
Once we become independent in most of our aspects, no one can stop us from entering into UN Security Council's Permanent Members group, no one can stop us from entering into so called NSG, no one can stop us from doing almost anything.
Remember, we already have a rich asset of culture and spirituality. We already have a huge asset of youth citizens. We just need to tune ourselves to the right frequencies. Please don't waste time and go head. As per Swami Vivekanand: "Arise, Awake, Know your strength and never stop till your goal is reached."
Note: By China I mean "People's Republic of China" and not "Republic of China (Taiwan)"
Now you decide, whether you want to participate in a "boycott movement" which would anyway not succeed in this era of demand and poverty, or you would like to do your best for this country, for this globe with whatever expertize you have.
Once we become independent in most of our aspects, no one can stop us from entering into UN Security Council's Permanent Members group, no one can stop us from entering into so called NSG, no one can stop us from doing almost anything.
Remember, we already have a rich asset of culture and spirituality. We already have a huge asset of youth citizens. We just need to tune ourselves to the right frequencies. Please don't waste time and go head. As per Swami Vivekanand: "Arise, Awake, Know your strength and never stop till your goal is reached."
Note: By China I mean "People's Republic of China" and not "Republic of China (Taiwan)"