Foreign Direct Investment - A Layman's attempts to understand it.

In the recent days, lot of talks is going on about something called Foreign Direct Investment. This made me to assume that all these days Foreigners were making investments indirectly. As a lay man who never made any investments even for tax saving purposes (mainly because I do not know how to do it) - until my friend entered my life - and it is she who still devises the various investment plans. But wherever I turn, people and media and newspapers were talking about Foreign Direct Investment. Being a layman this was sufficient enough to trigger an interest to know more about this subject.

Last Friday evening, after I came home, as usual I was watching TV and browsing through the channels. At 8 o' clock, there was message flashing on the screen on DD National “Please stand-by for an important telecast”. Having seen DD right from my child-hood, I know very well that after such an announcement some “mokkai”(useless) program is going to follow.  But the announcement on the screen stood still for a while and then our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared. To my surprise, he started explaining about the need for diesel price hike and more importantly on Foreign Direct Investment. I wondered how true is the statement “When the student is ready, the Teacher comes”. Manmohan-ji himself have come(though on TV) to explain Me about FDI.

But unfortunately he was talking in Hindi. With the little Hindi I know, I still tried to follow him. I also appreciated his efforts to explain every citizen about FDI, as he knew very well that more than 80% of his subjects would not have understood what it means. Also I got a secret note from believable sources that some among the protestors against FDI do so without understanding what it is. And I am sure now they would have glued to their TV sets to understand it from the person who introduced it. But the only mistake done by our Prime Minister is having selected DD which has only 0.0001% viewership and that too while jumping from one channel to another. Had I been the Prime Minister, I would have selected something like a F TV or M TV and suddenly would have appeared in between an  important program. But being a gentleman, I am sure our Honorable Prime Minister cannot do that.

Tears ebbed out of happiness and I became emotional on knowing that we got such a responsible Prime Minister who has taken the pain to explain it to each of his citizens. Since I was the only person in home who knew (little) Hindi, all others in home were looking at me to translate and inform them. But, I myself was having a hard time in understanding what he said, so I kept a stern face and never took my eyes away from the TV screen. Since I couldn’t understand anything, I started noticing his gestures & expressions. I believe he also had a hidden agenda where he gave a “punch on the face” to those people who said that he never opens his mouth. He was indeed opening his mouth while talking (though it requires some effort from our side to notice this) and was giving mild smile at times.

After the Hindi version, he repeated what he said in English too. But I changed the channel so that people in home believe that I indeed understood what he said in Hindi. I moved to our Tamil News Channels and as I expected, they were rightly discussing about it. In one channel, one guy has translated the whole speech on the fly to Tamil and was explaining in Tamil (at the same time when our Honorable Manmohan-ji was explaining in English). Now I was ready to explain to all in home, but no one turned to me, and they were listening to what he said on TV.

But in spite of all these, I have to secretly admit to my readers that I couldn’t understand what is meant by the Foreign Direct Investment, as the Tamil Guy also was also mostly using Jargons in his speech. Our Sweet PM explained that in 1991 people opposed liberalization when it was introduced, but now we are reaping the fruits of it. I agree with him on that. I know of people who booked a telephone connection and waited for 10 years, whereas we get it now the moment we provide an address proof. Also it almost eradicated the un-employment problem which was in its acute stage when liberalization was introduced. I was in my high school during those days. So our PM says that people who oppose now will also fail, and we will reap the fruits soon. As a side note, I would like to inform my readers that I hate fruits. I like only bajji, vada, etc.

But I still wanted the issue clarified, as partial knowledge is very dangerous. I called upon my friend, whom I believe is an expert on these things, and he is also a small scale business man.

“Hi Biva(name changed to protect identity), how are you doing”

“Hi Pavala(real name of the author), I am fine… how are you doing?”

“Fine here Biva… I wanted to know about an important stuff”

“Yes Pavala… whats it??? am glad to help you…”

“What is this Foreign Direct Investment… why are people creating fuss about it…”

“Its dangerous Pavala… Its not good for people…” he told in an alarming voice.

“How Biva??? That’s exactly what I want to understand…”

“It will chase all the Annachees(that’s how all small scale business men are known in Tamil Nadu..) from business…”

“How Biva???"

“Now WalMart will come and give all items at lower prices…”

I don’t know why all people target WalMart all the time. Why wont  some other company will come. To me it just shows how WalMart is keen in its business and mission and utilizing every opportunity to spread and grow.

“Hmmm… if WalMart can give at low prices, why cant our Annachees give at low prices…”

“WalMart will buy in large quantities and get huge discounts from seller and they will give at lower prices to people…”

“Why don’t our Annachees also join together and form an group and buy in large quantities and get huge discounts from the sellers and give it to us for lower prices…”

There was silence at the other end.

Though our Annachees join together for protests, I know that its tough for our Annachees to join together for business purposes, and in a hypothetical situation if they do so and get huge discounts from sellers, they wont pass it on to us, instead they will see huge profits.

“Tell me Biva, for consumers like us, is it good or bad… We will get items (not the item as in “item songs”… here it means commodities :-)…) at lower prices no…”

“Yes Pavala… But our Annachees and their families will suffer… it will drive them out of business…”

“But, why should I worry about Annachees Biva… are they worrying about Me or about My family… The 'mukku kadai' Annachee (corner shop Annachee…) is not even giving Me free Corriander leaves nowadays…”

“Yes Pavala…” He was a bit sad and embarrassed and we talked about something else for a couple of minutes before we dis-connected.

That cleared it… Soon there is going to be increased competition and we are going to get commodities at lower prices. But our PM said that the accusation that it will drive away Annachees is baseless and they will have their share. I have to agree on this too, as I can see that the road side food stalls co-exist with big restaurants.

I also have business people is my very close circle, but I am really scared to ask them about this.

Note: This article is purely based on the author's (poor) understanding and assumptions and if this hurts the feeling or sentis or anything else of our Honorable Prime Minister or the Annachees or anyone else, it primarily has be to attributed to the poor understanding and writing skills of the author in which case, the author apologizes to them in advance.