The year was 1980, the late prime clergyman of India, Indira Gandhi, had returned to power after receiving a thumping majority in the parliamentary elections. The air was abuzz with new possibilities and new expectations. This was a mellowed Indira, just opposite of her 1975 - 1977 self when she had imposed crisis and curtailed democratic freedoms and lost 1977 elections in its aftermath.
This time she was doing just opposite of what she did in her earlier forays, and went on to clear the cobwebs of license-quota-permit raj (reign). The barriers created by communist-socialist inspired reasoning were being dismantled, though it was never officially admitted. This way, she was modern of Margaret Thatcher and Deng Xiaoping. However, her way of doing things was so subtle and so well camouflaged in the rhetoric of communism that it was never realised that what is happening behind the scenes. While Thatcher and Deng attracted worldwide concentration for of their huge swing from left to the right, Indira drew concentration for all the wrong reasons. The seeds of what is happening in India now were sown, may be unwittingly, in her reign from 1980-1984, the reputation of which, however, still eludes her.
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The most noteworthy thing that I remember she did was that she broadbanded the licensing system in automobile business and thus unshackled it from the government control. Indian Economy, a female prisoner of failed communist-socialist ideas was unfettered. It took her some time to realise that she is free, she was weak and frail in the beginning, and acquired force over the period of time. The gift reforms unleashed by the Prime clergyman Manmohan Singh in 1997, as the then Finance Minister, were built on the foundation laid by Indira Gandhi, but nobody saw it below the ground.
The noteworthy offshoot of her reforms were the set in motion of Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki two wheelers and above all the advent of Maruti-Suzuki, the soap-box shaped mini-the generation defining car, thus thoroughly changing the face of Indian manufacturing business in the later years. Staid old Lambretta scooters and old Fiat and Ambassador cars began loosing ground.
In 1980 India's total car output was 40,000 vehicles and no auto major worth its salt was willing to place its bets on India. The store of 700 million consumers hungry for goods and services went a begging. Then Suzuki-an automobile minor-entered where American, European and other Japanese angels feared to tread. Now they are producing 40,000 cars every 10 days. They have the first mover advantage: they are India's normal Motors and Toyota, rolled into one. Thanks to the foresight of Indira Gandhi.
Indira Gandhi Unleashes Automobile Revolution in India Spearheaded by Maruti-SuzukiSee Also : todays world news headlines
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