Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

PM Inaugurates ISID Campus

"I am delighted to be here today to inaugurate this new campus of the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development. Let me, at the very outset, convey my warmest regards and my best wishes for the long life of Shri Chandrashekharji. This institute is the realization of one of his dream. It will always be a symbol of his ideas and vision for a new India.

I had the good fortune of working with Chandrashekharji and, indeed, I learnt a lot from him. I would like to pay my personal tribute to his political and intellectual leadership. He is a thinking politician and a thinking person's politician. He belongs to that generation of post-Independence political leaders who have viewed power as a sacred societal trust. They wished to exercise political power in the interests of society and the nation at large. For Chadrashekharji, political power is not an end in itself. He has viewed it as a means of realizing his political vision, implementing his political manifesto.

Some of us may not agree with all the ideas that Chandrashekharji holds dear. But he, like a true liberal, respects those who differ with him. He has always been willing to engage his political opponents in a meaningful dialogue. That is why he has friends across the political spectrum. He has been a great admirer of Indiraji, even when he differed with her. So has he been an admirer and associate of such diverse political leaders of our time as Shri Morarji Desai, Shri Jayaprakash Narain, Shri Jagjivan Ram, Choudhary Charan Singh, Shri Rajiv Gandhi, Shri P V Narasimha Rao, Shri Krishna Kant, Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee and Shri Inder Kumar Gujral.

This intellectual ability to engage such diverse political personages, I believe, is a hallmark of our political culture that we have inherited from our freedom struggle. Who can deny the sharp intellectual disagreements at times between such tall leaders of our nation such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajagopalachari, EMS Namboodaripad, Acharya Kripalani, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia and so many others. It is a measure of the respect our leaders had for each other, even when they disagreed with each other, that Panditji had in his cabinet colleagues with whom he had sometimes, sharp differences. So did Indiraji. Of course, sometimes these differences became so sharp that leaders like Chandrashekharji chose to strike out on their own and chart a new course. That is how a democracy functions.

It is a symbol of Chandrashekharji's commitment to the modernization and industrialization of India that he chose to support this brave new initiative to set up an institution focusing on the problem of industrialisation. We have many centers of research on agriculture in India but few that study industry intensively.

I have always believed India is destined to emerge as an important industrial power. It is only through rapid industrialization that we can find meaningful solutions to the problems of mass unemployment and underdevelopment. Of course, considering that nearly 70% of our population lives in rural areas, we have to lay adequate emphasis on increasing agricultural output and agricultural productivity. Yet, since the per capita availability of land is less than 1.5 hectares, there are severe limitations to expanding employment opportunities in agriculture on a large scale. Therefore, we have to find ways and means to accelerate the process of industrialization and also to ensure that this process is sufficiently labour intensive.

There will of course be impediments but we must learn how to conquer them. Concerns will be expressed, especially by those who may see themselves as losers in the process of industrialisation. We must learn to address their concerns and assuage them to the extent possible. Industrialisation ought to be a win-win process of social transformation and economic development. A developing country like ours cannot afford to view industrialization as a negative phenomenon. There are as I said, areas of concern, like displacement of people, like environmental damage, like alienation of the working class. These concerns must be dealt with, and remedied but one cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I have been familiar with ISID's work from its very inception. The research team that Professor Goyal put together was originally formed in the Indian Institute of Public Administration. I recall that in the 1980s, this group was doing important research on industrial policy and on the structure and change in Indian business. The impressive database collected by Dr Goyal and his colleagues enabled several generations of Indian researchers to study the process of industrial development in India.

I am, therefore, very happy that ISID has now a new and a very impressive campus of its own. It should emerge as a major center of research on Indian industrialization. This remains a challenging and exciting field of research. Indian business is just beginning to make its mark on the world stage. In the past 60 years, we have created the foundation on which India's emergence as a modern industrial economy has now become a living reality.

When Dr. Goyal and his team began studying Indian industrial development in the 1970s, their focus was on the problems facing Indian business. Today, one only reads about the opportunities at hand. Three decades ago, we use to worry about multinationals over-powering Indian companies. Today, Indian companies are going global and becoming multinationals. The process may yet be incipient, but change is visible and here to stay. The nature of competition has changed and so has the nature of regulation. We have to find therefore new means of ensuring that markets do remain competitive, that monopolistic practices are curtailed and that growth is more balanced, more employment oriented and more inclusive.

ISID has done considerable work on industrial competitiveness and regulation. We need new ideas in these areas to deal with new challenges now on the horizon. I was struck recently by a comment in the media that most of the billionaires among India's top business leaders operate in oligopolistic markets, and in sectors where the government has conferred special privileges on a few.

This sounds like crony capitalism. Are we encouraging crony capitalism? Is this a necessary but transient phase in the development of modern capitalism in our country? Are we doing enough to protect consumers and small businesses from the consequences of crony capitalism? ISID's researchers used to be concerned about the problems facing domestic enterprise. Have we, in the name of protecting them, encouraged crony capitalism? Do we have a genuine level playing field for all businesses? What should be done to inject a greater degree of competitiveness in the industrial sector? I look forward to ISID for providing answers to each one of these important questions.

I do recognize, however, that there is today great dynamism in Indian industry. These days when I am called upon often to give away awards to business leaders, I am struck by the fact that many of the awardees are first generation business leaders. Some of the best performers today in most of our sunrise industries were not even in business when ISID was first started! Where have they come from? How did they break into the monopolistic and oligopolistic markets they faced at the time of their entry? What made the difference? What is government policy, individual enterprise, global links and opportunities, or what else? These are questions worth examining?

We also need to focus on the role of Small and Medium Enterprises in industrial development. We cannot depend on a few large industrial houses and capitalists for driving our industrialization process. The employment intensive nature and the greater regional spread of Small and Medium Enterprises makes them an attractive option for our industrial growth processes. ISID could study the SME sector more intensively and suggest policy initiatives for their expansion and growth.

I am also puzzled by the persisting regional imbalance in industrial development and urbanization in India. We need credible policy solutions to help us reduce these imbalances. Industrial development must spread to new regions, especially in northern and eastern India. What are the lessons we can learn from the experience of western and southern India? What are the lessons we can draw from the growth of new enterprise?

Another challenge we face is to generate employment on large scale in the industrial sector. How can we ensure that our manufacturing sector generates new jobs and remains competitive not just globally but also with in our own region of South Asia and South East Asia? Are our labour laws in fact inhibiting the growth of new businesses? If so, where and how? How do we create not just skilled jobs but unskilled ones to help agricultural workers make the transition to industrialisation? What kind of industries must be encouraged to grow and what can public policy do to help in their growth?

The vision of modernization that Chandrashekharji shares with Jawaharlal Nehru is one that sees industrialisation as a dynamic process of modernization of a traditional society. We have seen the consequences, both beneficial and not so beneficial, of industrialization in various parts of our country. How do we move forward? Mindful of social concerns, mindful of environmental and ecological concerns, mindful of our workers welfare and interests, mindful of the interests of women and children. How do we ensure that industrialization does indeed enable people-friendly modernization of our economy and our polity?

Such are the issues that must engage your researchers. I would like ISID to take stock of where India is today and where we are destined to go. That will be the best tribute ISID can pay to its founder, Shri Chandrashekharji. His claim to fame is that he has been a "young turk". An angry young man who wished to see change. His generation was not defensive. They were not afraid of the world. Merely they were angry with the status quo. But they channelised their anger and thereby shaped public policy in the way they thought fit at that time.

Today, in a new world, some of their ideas may no longer be relevant. But their spirit, their nationalism and their deep patriotism, their yearning to see a new India, strong and modern, equitable, united and forward-looking that vision endures and it must endure. That spirit must be kept alive and fostered in every possible way. I hope a new generation of Indians will re-live the spirit of adventure, enterprise and creativity that an earlier generation had. With these words, I wish ISID all success."