By SK Nag
While going through ITC AGM note of reimagining business, suddenly stuck with the sub-headline “responsible capitalism,” unfolding the strategy required in coming years to combat the changes the pandemic brought in. The ABCDE economy of India, viz agriculture, Bollywood, cricket, discount & EMI has been changed, and a new emerging economy structure will evolve. The corporates and citizens both had enough learning to lead their future journeys and were figuratively understood to have captured the sentiment of people dynamic.
Corporates must look at the market to understand the apparent need without the frills in their products because the basic things will top the bucket list. Impulse in buying habits will need a couple of years more to come back. Since then, the capitalism theory has to be majorly socialistic capitalism. Making money through profiteering will have a different definition altogether.
Karl Marx conceptualized a money-driven economy as a cash nexus to reify the sadistic grid of storing cash in rich people’s coffers. But this desire to collect more is the primary driver for growth. Unless this is available in the system, the country cannot grow.
Necessity is the mother of invention; we all know that during pandemics and lockdowns, many families lost their livelihood due to job cuts and salary cuts in the companies. But a human being cannot give up living. Empathy in the Indian social fabric has taken care of us by sharing resources among relatives and friends. Social distancing brought us close mentally by making us remote physically. We had a telephonic reconnect after many years of disconnection. This collaborative living has made us learn one thing that is to live for ourselves and others too.
The economy could withstand the shock due to its size and dependence on the agro-economy. The structure of consumption is far more extraordinary than the rest of the world. Indian significant population lives in the village, and tier 2 & 3 cities and our reliance on processed food is less. Therefore agricultural produce is our main food. So food had never been a problem for large sections due to reverse migration of the workforce due to lockdown. Though the quality of livelihood deteriorated and living was challenging but not impossible. Indian villages and cities (tier 2 & 3) have inherited tremendous human values. Inborn socialistic mindset has taken care of others who can afford to stand for others during distress. These responsible social angels are many, and that is what India is. The largest democracy has a chord of attachment which only gets into action if needed.
Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest is not true when we talk about collaborative living. United we stand has made us cross the pandemic-driven menace to save many families from surviving the mental trauma of penniless life. Sudden joblessness had taken aback many families. But the rebooting of life is now happening again, but the stage of hibernation mode of ice age sleep of almost two years was friendful, faithful, and responsible capitalism of citizens at large.
(Author is Industrial Engineer, Fellow Valuer, Chartered Engineer, BEE approved Energy Expert and Industry Mentor. The views expressed are personal opinion of the author. He can be reached at saibal.iim@gmail.com)
