Written by: gfesadmin on January 21, 2013

With the liberalization of trade policies in 1991, new doors of opportunity opened and a new India was born.  Private and free enterprise was a welcome relief from the previously assumed socialist ‘regime’. With all of the growth and progress, India, many would say can now be listed as a capitalist nation.  While this maybe partially true, as it does have the outlook of capitalism with a free market, and mass production through private enterprise with considerably low government controls, there is a part to India’s capitalism that seems surreal.  

This I believe is for several reasons.  India so-called venture in to capitalism since the early 1990’s has not resulted in poverty reduction as it was expected too or reduce the number of people living below the poverty line.   While India may have shown a rise in GDP, it still lags behind on the Human Development Index. Capitalism in India has not resulted in uniform and equal development of resources and opportunities for the masses.   The distribution of resources and opportunities and control of the same is again restricted to a few (say 4% or so) leaving little or nothing even for the ‘growing middle class’, who still depend on the government to provide for a ‘way – out’.  Although India can boast a growing middle class, the fact that the gap between the haves and the have nots are ever widening cannot be ignored. 

In fact, the birth of ‘new India’ has in many ways kept the ‘old India’ in the shadows.  In a sense, the capitalism India adopted neither redistributed nor created wealth and perhaps at its best has only succeeded in recycling existing wealth within a few hands that has led to excessive hoarding.   In simple terms, the individual makes money…and easy money even at the expense of the nation.  The infamous 2G scam that rocked the nation last year is a classic example of this ‘spirit’ of Indian capitalism.  Bribes, corruption, tax evasions, and extortion are now a way of life and a product of India’s capitalist ‘spirit’.

What India has adopted as capitalism, I believe is just the shell without the core of it.  It is in sort of a free – float without any moorings that can be rationalized unlike ‘western capitalism’ which Weber, in his book: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, rationalizes with the Protestant Ethic which influenced ‘spirit’ of western capitalism.  The virtues of the protestant ethic not only ‘dignified’ money-making but also spurred the individual to reckon with a ‘greater cause’ that resulted in the growth of ‘once’ robust economies.  In his remarkably discerning conclusion, Weber lamented that the loss of religious underpinning to capitalism’s spirit has led to a kind of involuntary servitude to mechanized industry.   For India, it is not the loss of religious underpinning but the lack of it, which is the core of capitalism.  Furthermore, it can be argued in the case of capitalism in India, that a consciousness of morals alone do not suffice to build an ethic but a sense of deeper spiritual awakening is needed for a total transformation.  

Concluding from Weber’s thesis then, the core of true capitalism underscores the value of the individual and their collaborative contribution to society.  Our life is therefore a ‘calling’ to live above the ordinary and live in the possibility of opportunities and new horizons not just for our good but the greater good of all mankind.   Should India adopt a capitalism that is influenced by religious and moral underpinnings, particularly one that is influenced by a protestant ethic, it stands a chance at becoming a world leader someday.  Until then the talk of ‘India Shining’ is mere rhetoric of politicians vying for people’s votes.      

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