Make In India: Modi, Obama and Ambani power same idea across a singular constituency: jobs

Across the world, in country after country, the political push has converged to one small word: jobs. If citizens are productively employed, not only do they create a wider market, they also spend as consumers, thereby catalysing wealth creation and economic development. So, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the ‘Make in India’ initiative today , it was in tune with what leaders across the world have been doing for decades now. Ever since globalisation began to accelerate from the 1980s, calls for capital have been resounding in countries of various political ideologies — from South Korea and UK to Singapore and China.

“Government is committed to development,” Modi told businessmen from India and abroad. “This is not a political agenda, but an article of faith.” He talked about reversing a trend, where every businessman he met in the past three years wanted to move out of the country. “When I heard such views I felt very sad. Why must our own people want to leave India?”

When he pressed the economic growth pedal further, it delivered political currency. “Jobs,” he said,“are crucial. Greater the number of Indians who move to middle class level from poor, greater the market for global products.” And here lies the political idea behind the economic resurgence of India, an idea that brings the four components of society into a harmonious virtuous cycle of prosperity — citizens become workers, workers become consumers, consumers become investors and investors fund enterprises.

The 125,000 jobs that Reliance Industries Ltd chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani pledged in his speech at the Make in India launch today is in synch with this idea. But big numbers is only one leg of India’s largest private company; its other leg is achieving scale in record time. Creating 125,000 jobs is a feat that very few companies can negotiate; but being able to realise it in 12 to 15 months would possibly be a world’s first.

Disclosure: I am the New Media Director at Reliance Industries Ltd.

Both Modi and Ambani are in tune with a broader trend the world over, where leaders seek job creation and businesses deliver the goods. The singular importance of jobs as the key political tool that powers the economy of nations was underlined by US President Barack Obama three days ago, in his 22 September 2014 statement . “I believe America does better when hard work pays off, responsibility is rewarded, and everyone plays by the same set of rules,” he said. “In the weeks and months ahead we should do even more to bring fairness to our tax code, help our businesses create more American jobs, and expand opportunity for all.”

Further, “America’s businesses have created 10 million jobs over the last 54 months - the longest stretch of uninterrupted private sector job growth in our nation’s history - and we should do everything we can as a country to build on that progress. That’s why I’ve called on Congress to lower our corporate tax rate, close wasteful loopholes, and simplify the tax code for everyone.” This, at a time when the higher rates of tax in the US are pushing companies to set up their headquarters outside the US.

Ambani’s125,000 new jobs are only the first tangible step towards a more prosperous India. At the same event, ICICI Bank managing director ChandaKochhar spoke about how Make in India will spur job creation. “Manufacturing,” she said, has the potential to add 90 million new jobs over the next 10 years. Clearly, while Modi is driving the political job agenda by easing rules for global investors, businesses will be taking lead and delivering the jobs and creating wealth.

Capital goes where wealth can be created. Unlike people and goods, the flow of capital is virtually seamless across boundaries. As a bi-product, economic growth is supposed to push economic development through an idea called ’trickle down effect’ that’s premised on the belief that wealth accumulation by the rich finally flows down to the poor. Unfortunately, this has not happened on expected lines in the past three decades.Today, the debate has shifted to fixing another issue — inequality — taken to bestselling levels by Thomas Piketty’s 700-pager’Capital in the Twenty-First Century' .

Job creation is part of a solution that not only gives India’s young an opportunity to express themselves through work, but through that expression create larger markets and a wealthier nation. All three — Modi, Obama and Ambani — are essentially powering the same idea across a singular constituency: jobs.

Disclosure: Network 18, which publishes Firstpost and Firstbiz, is now part of the Reliance Group. The columnist is the New Media Director at Reliance Industries Ltd