India at 2047:
Capitalist growth strategy based on super-exploitation of workers

The Niti Aayog has been working on a document called Vision India@2047. It is a long-term economic growth strategy, aimed at achieving the status of a high-income country by the 100th anniversary of independence. As per the details made available by Niti Aayog, the target is to make India’s GDP cross Rs. 3600 lakh crores in 2047, with a per-capita income of over Rs. 20 lakh per year.

The projected growth in the average, or per-capita income, hides the enormous and widening gap between the profits earned by the capitalist class and the incomes earned by the masses of working people. The fact that the growth strategy is focused only on raising the average income, without any regard for the living standards of workers and peasants, shows that its aim is to fulfil the greed of the capitalists.

Once it is completed, the draft strategy is expected to be presented first to a group of monopoly capitalists before being published. This group includes Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, K.M. Birla and N. Chandrasekharan (CEO of Tata Sons), as well as Tim Cook (Apple), Sundar Pichai (Google) and Indra Nooyi (formerly Pepsico). This process further confirms that the main aim is the further enrichment of capitalist billionaires. The long-term growth strategy is in fact being prepared by Niti Aayog at the request of the monopoly capitalists. Vision India@2047 is nothing but the vision of the Indian ruling class.

One of the specific features of the growth strategy is the desire of Indian capitalists to take advantage of the American offensive against China. The US Government has in recent years been restricting Chinese imports and inducing multinational companies to shift their source of commodity supply away from China. Indian monopoly capitalists see in this an opportunity to replace China as a preferred source for global supply chains. They hope to attract the leading multinational companies to locate their production in India instead of China.

Economy_graphic
Table 1: Growth Targets; (Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/pm-to-unveil-vision-2047-soon/article67473900.ece; Oct 29, 2023)

 

Exports are projected to grow very rapidly in the next 25 years (Table 1). A large part of the country’s exports depends on imported raw materials and components. The high rate of export growth is therefore projected to result in imports also growing rapidly. The excess of imports over exports is projected to grow from $0.3 trillion in 2030 to $2.5 trillion in 2047. This widening gap will require continuous and growing inflow of foreign capital in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign portfolio investment (FPI), foreign loans and remittances.

Foreign monopolies would shift their investments to India only if they are able to produce at lower cost and earn more profit compared to China. This implies that India must offer lower wages, allow longer working hours, and give maximum freedom for capitalists to hire and fire workers as they please.  In other words, the key to achieve a tremendous increase in foreign capital inflows lies in further intensification of the exploitation of Indian workers.

It is to be noted that the amendment of the Factories Act enacted in Karnataka this year to allow 12-hour shifts was in response to the demands made by Foxconn, a Taiwanese monopoly company, as the condition for shifting its production of mobile phones and other Apple products from China to Karnataka. A similar amendment was enacted in Tamil Nadu as well, but withdrawn after strong opposition by workers’ unions in that state.

Indian monopoly capitalists are already resorting to extensive use of contract workers in place of regular workers. They are doing so with the dual aim of lowering wages and increasing their profitability and competitiveness, on the one hand, and to weaken the fighting capacity of the working class, on the other hand.

Monopoly capitalists have initiated a debate in the media around the idea that workers should toil for 70 hours a week for the sake of making India a developed country by 2047.

Vision India@2047 is in the service of the imperialist aims of the Indian bourgeoisie. Indian monopoly capitalists aim to become global giants by further intensifying the exploitation of the working class and robbery of peasants and other small-scale producers. Far from leading to prosperity for all, it is a course that is bound to bring more instability in the lives of workers and peasants. It will make the country dangerously dependent on foreign capital. It means even greater concentration of wealth and monopoly power. It means even more vicious attacks on the rights of working people.

Workers and peasants have to unite around their own independent program, aimed at becoming the rulers in place of the bourgeoisie. Under workers’ and peasants’ rule, the Constitution will guarantee the right to livelihood and all human rights. The means of large-scale production will be converted to social property and the economy will be reoriented from fulfilling capitalist greed to fulfilling human needs.


One trillion = 1000 billion = One lakh crore

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