From Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai to "Boycott China!"

Irony committed suicide while I was typing 'Boycott China' in a Lenovo Laptop. (Lenovo is a Chinese company)

I was stunned to see when suddenly people of India started burning their LCD's and LED's and other china made products. Kudos to them! I mean, even in lockdown they're strong enough to waste their hard earned money by destroying their own though made in China products! What a mind boggling display of patriotism by the people of India. Hats off!

Nevermind, I feel pity for them.

Actually it is very easy to get emotional and get distracted from the realities of life, realities which can shock you and scare you. If we think logically and practical enough, we would never have called for 'Boycott China' movement. Before you start throwing virtual rotten tomatoes all over me, do have the courtesy to read what I've written below.

 How on earth is it possible for India to boycott China when most of the things we use in our daily life are 'Made in China'?

Remember those Chinese LED's, bulbs and lights you bought on last Diwali just because they were a bit cheaper, those good quality, better featured and relatively cheaper Vivo, Oppo, One plus, Motorola, Redmi mobile phones?

Now, are you willing to throw all that stuff out of your house without even having a nice 'Indian' substitute for it?

Again we are working in the wrong direction, instead of 'Boycotting China', we should have made efforts to Standardize our goods, build a reliable infrastructure, showed the world that we don't need those 'Chinese' products because we have the capability to make our own better stuff.

If we go back in our history, our freedom fighters, Shri Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai in 1909 had started Swadeshi Movement before Boycott Foreign goods movement because they wanted to make us self sufficient and self reliant before we could plunge onto boycott movement.

We should have worked relentlessly towards Make in India movement or 'Aatmanirbhar' Bharat movement before burning Chinese products. Let's for once keep our sentiments aside and think rationally, make a strategy and then work upon it. For that we need to focus on the following aspects:

1. Building a  Psychology:-

While we were busy watching 'Roti bahu and Sasural Shit ka', Chinese people were watching programs and serials which motivated them to work hard. A TV program called "China's nongmingong" which elucidates how a worker's life changed when he starts working in a factory or a manufacturing unit and that how hard work has considerably improved their lives.

China's literacy rate for 2018 was around 97% whereas in 1990 it was just 79%. It clearly shows where they have been working on from long. Whereas the female literacy rate in China is 95%. Moreover unemployment rate in China even after Covid-19 is 4.3% and our numbers are known to us better, do I need to tell here? Yet, we are trying to compete with China!

2. Aid start-ups:-

While our Government and Opposing parties were busy putting blames for failed economy on each other, it was China who thoroughly supported our emerging Indian Start-ups. They had put approximately 4 billion dollars to boost our startup companies. Whatever famous consumer services apps we tend to use in our daily life like Byjus, Big basket, Ola, Oyo, PayTm, Flipkart, Hike, Swiggy, Zomato and many more it's the Chinese investors only who had given them a bit of hope and helped them when they needed the most.

3. Patent our Goods:-  

The power of patents could be known by the fact that patents are an indicative of a country's technological advancements. A country's ability to develop new products, satisfying other people by providing them with desired goods generates wealth and such innovation brings technological advancements to a country. Well in 2017 India's patent office granted 12,387 patents while in the same year the number of China's patents were 13,06,080.  

This number speaks volumes about the technological friendly India!

4. Good Quality V/s cheaper rates:-

We all know cheaper rates win in this argument. Indian people usually don't care about the quality, poverty stricken people, do you think they would care about the quality?

I remember my neighbor commenting on Diwali, 'these chinese lights are good, works once or twice, but full paisa vasool' whereas an India made lights though they are relatively expensive but we get bored of putting the same every year!

Don't cringe, you yourself have heard them/said them many times. 

Alas! it's time to focus on Quality over quantity.

5. Hard work should prevail over corruption :-

You can deny it for thousands of times but corruption exists as a matter of fact. Issuing tenders to undeserving candidates (obviously for money), less efficient public projects -more scope of manipulation and more bribe taking opportunities, small businesses avoid getting themselves registered with authorities to avoid taxation, people getting appreciations for what has been done by someone else and a lot more.

 Life has already been so cruel and to add onto it, the officials and influential people leave no stone unturned to make the life a living hell for an ordinary citizen.

Stop this corruption before it's too late, because people have already started to loose their cool on it!

Lastly, I've certainly not written all of this either to criticize our system or people rather the purpose of this write up is to learn from the people who are better than us even if they happen to be Chinese. Instead of 'Boycotting' them completely, we should learn from them and try to build an Aatmanirbhar Bharat for ourselves.

After all life is all about assimilating better things from others and amending our errors! Ain't it?

And I sincerely hope that by the time my children start writing their blog, they'll be writing it on a laptop which is entirely Made in India!

I hope they do.