Is Local really worth the Vocal? Heed the call of our nation.

Greetings from the local blogger! The word ‘local’ has received tremendous emphasis due to its recent mention by the iconic speech of our Prime Minister, Mr. Modi. But are we inclined towards the thought of using and encouraging the local brands and replacing the already existing foreign brands in our homes and workplace?

India is a potential consumer ocean for selling almost anything. This is because of two reasons: Our colossal population and its undying love for everything foreign. We’ve been fed the idea of associating anything ‘Videshi’ to being a class apart by the influencers and media of our society. Even an illiterate Indian associates ‘imported’ with something elite. But, as is the customary, all the luxury comes with a price which in this case, is the downfall of the domestic market and thereby a dent in the Indian economy. To understand this, let’s dive into the concept of import and export.

How Import and Export shapes the economy?

Basically, importing and exporting something represents outflow and inflow of the country’s wealth respectively. More number of exports than imports indicate that a country has trade surplus. A trade surplus uplifts the economy of the country which is an indicator of the employment boost indirectly. Does that mean we should stop importing goods altogether? Not at all, in fact, a healthy economy is the one which experiences growth in both its imports and exports.

Importing does cause a drop in the value of domestic currency of the nation. Hence, if the value of rupee has stooped to a new low of being approximately 1/75^th of US dollar, we need to question our preferences. There are hardly any villagers carrying around a Gucci handbag with a pair of Nike shoes covering their feet and a fancy Fossil watch around their wrist. What is more, is that approximately 66% of the total population is rural. These are bound to use the local brands available at their local markets. The remaining 34%, the urban population, a small percentage of which falling under the middle class, upper middle class and the elites, having an ‘image’ to maintain, purchase and use these foreign brands. Such a fraction of the total population gives rise to the imports of the country, leading us to an economic downfall. No wonder, we are the people who buy these foreign brands and after that even whine about the government not being able to counter the problem of unemployment. Someone’s spending is someone’s income; that’s the basic rule of Economy.

How will switching to Swadeshi products save our economy’s decline?

Right now, the country is already facing a huge economic crisis owing to the existence of a global pandemic in the form of COVID-19 a.k.a novel corona virus and the resultant lockdown being enforced in the entire country. The domestic manufacturers of India will take a significant amount of time to revive from this and our affection to imported products and brands will only act as catalyst to their downfall. India is a manufacture house to almost all commodities essential and still it is difficult to pin point the number of Indian brands we use on a daily basis. Some brands like the ethnic wear icon Sabhyasachi and makeup world’s Lakme and My Glamm are purely and proudly made in India and are still shining bright in their heavily foreign influenced industries. Even switching from a Bacardi to an Old Monk (or from a Corona to a Bira, depends on your choice of alcohol) will help prevent the outflow of the Indian Rupee to other countries. We’ll be higher than before, well in both cases, lol.

How can there be encouragement for switching to Swadeshi?

A country cannot outright ban the foreign countries from selling their products in the country. That will lead to decline in the trade relations of the two countries which is not permissible owing to the trade treaties and agreements signed between nations. What we can do is identify and stop the consumption of foreign brands and replace them with local ones, as much as possible. This will cause the foreign brands to pour in less products as there will be less demand for their products in our country.

It’s time we shifted focus from criticizing what the government does and bring about a small alteration in our shopping sprees to cause a huge change. We all love browsing through Amazon and Flipkart and Myntra for our shopping needs. We do monthly grocery shopping from D-Mart, Reliance Mart and Big Bazaar. Let’s take time to search for Indian brand alternatives to the products we need regularly and make a switch to swadeshi. As it is, the lockdown got us accepting a lot of in house challenges and innovating our lives. Could we not prepare a list of Indian substitutes for our needs and make a vow to stick to these substitutes to give our two cents to the building of our economy? A prepared list to aid your selection is available on https://officechai.com/stories/pm-modis-focus-self-reliance-prompts-list-made-india-alternatives-foreign-products/

We are the citizens who bought Khadi on republic day to heed the call of our Prime Minister. It is time we display patriotism in accepting swadeshi rather than focussing our attention on politics and religious sentiments. Our nation needs our shoulder to make it prosperous once again. Will you heed the call?