Why such a hue and cry on spending on Lobbying by Wal-Mart?
Yesterday, there was hue and cry in the Indian Parliament on the report submitted by Wal-Mart (an USA based Mult-brand Retail Trading Company) to the US Congress on spending 125 crores on lobbying for market exploration. Though the report did not mention anything about spending on lobbying in India, yet the opposition party (NDA led by BJP) took it granted that a sizeable portion of this amount has been spend in lobbying in India. NDA people seem to be confused to understand that most of the policy reforms in India adopted since Independence are the outcomes of the lobbying a section of vested interest groups, who, in course of shaping/reshaping the mainstream development process, could accumulate huge amount of assets distinguishing themselves from majority of the common people of India living under poverty/scarcity/insecurity/uncertainty. It is due to the lobbying (wherein NDA was also a party for a couple of years), Indians are now distinctly divided into elite Indians and ordinary Indians. Not only Wall-Mart, all big business houses/multinational groups spend money in lobbing through national/international level agencies. These lobbying are done in such a subtle way, that these are not visible in the open eyes; even the intelligentia class also fail to understand the hidden mechanism. An example can make it clear – suppose a country has been facing with child malnutrition. Making this an issue a supplementary food products producing multinational company would fund a NGO (National or International) to chalk out a project to highlight the issue and its remedy. The project comes out with a definite findings dictated by the donor agency; thereafter, the donor agency hands over this document to lobbying experts to influence the policy makers to change policy addressing the recommendations of the project. Such a process has been applicable in bringing about so called reform for structural adjustment or market development in all sectors (health, education, infrastructure, etc) right from the onset of Planning in India.
Majority of Indian people (through they are found getting lobbied by one or other political parties during election process), are out of the ambit of lobbying; this is because none (organist ion/party/individual) are really active for lobbying to safeguard their interests. In fact they (common Indians) have been the victims of the outcomes of lobbying by the vested interest groups.
If at all such lobbying has been done by Wall-mart to capture market in India, there is nothing to wonder for this for an ordinary Indian.