{"id":4142,"date":"2019-04-15T23:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4142"},"modified":"2019-04-15T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T17:30:08","slug":"loss-of-self-sufficiency-and-jammu-and-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/loss-of-self-sufficiency-and-jammu-and-kashmir\/","title":{"rendered":"Loss of Self-Sufficiency and Jammu and Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

PUNCHLINE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-Sufficiency And Problems Thereof <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Z.G. Muhammad<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economics has never been my cup of tea. I have no\nclaim to have read and understood John Maynard Keynes, the man who through the sheer\nbrilliance revolutionised the concept of economics. Moreover, through his \u2018Keynesian\neconomics,\u2019 he established a sort of yardstick that subsequently defined all\neconomists that came after him.   I have no claim to have read,\ncomprehended and assimilated Marxian economics. Notwithstanding, decades back having\nseen one of my friends translating Karl Marx\u2019s seminal work Das Kapital into my\nmother tongue Koshur, despite finding the ideas quite convincing, I never\nendeavoured to make a serious study of \u2018Das Kapital\u2019 or \u2018Dialectical\nMaterialism\u2019. Equally, I am yet to assimilate \u2018Islamic Economics\u2019 as\nencapsulated by Sayyid Abul A\u2019la Mawdudi in his scholarly work \u2018First\nPrinciples of Islamic Economics\u2019 edited by one of world-renowned economist\nProfessor Khurshid Ahmad. For a novice like me, even Professor Khurshid\nexhaustive introduction to the book was enough to get a basic understanding of\nIslamic economics. With my all love, for his clarity of thought on welfare\neconomics and wealth distribution, I never studied Amartya Sen with\nseriousness. I never dusted a book titled \u2018Manmohannomics\u2019 on a bookshelf in my\nstudy. So my ideas on the economy of Jammu and Kashmir will be mundane but\nworth debating by economists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of having studied discourses and debates,  if the movement against feudal autocracy\nin the state was \u2018economic struggle\u2019 or \u2018existential battle of the overwhelming\nmajority\u2019   that dominated during the late thirties\nand the forties,  in this column, I\nnever talked about the economy of the state. And I never wrote the economic\nissues confronting the people. In the late thirties of the past century when\nJawaharlal Nehru  appeared as a new\npolitical  guru for the movement\nstarted by the Muslims the state, and he had deputed communist ideologues like\nK.M. Ashraf and B.P.L. Bedi to Kashmir, a good majority of the leaders had\nagreed with them it was an \u2018economic struggle\u2019   against taxes and wages. Moreover, the document of\nNaya Kashmir was seen as the ultimate panacea. The document was a \u2018cure-all\nsolution\u2019, a faction of Kashmir leadership so much was overwhelmed with it, and\nthey influenced even Mrs Gandhi. \nIn 1948, in thick of international debates about the future of the state,\nMrs Gandhi wrote to her father Prime Minister Nehru that Kashmir does need a\npolitical solution. The people here need adequate stocks of foodgrains and tourism-\nfor selling their handicrafts. If the document prepared by the communist\nideologues has ultimately proved a panacea for the state or it is still engaged\nin the \u201cexistential battle\u201d is not subject of this column.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That state after the end of the feudal rule, in\nreality, lost its self-sufficiency, this grim reality made me tread into the\nterritory of the economists and come up with mundane ideas on the question loss\nof self-sufficiency. This loss, I believe is one among the existential threats\nthat the state is confronted with at present. Like Banquo\u2019s ghost in Macbeth,\nthis harsher reality visits the state more particularly territories and\nterrains outside the plains of Jammu often.  In 2008, during the Amaranth land row and road blockade, the\nloss of self-sufficiency made for more significant statement than ever before,\nit did cause some thinking in our business fraternity about cutting down\nimports and working for self-sufficiency. But, in reality except establishing a\ncouple of units nothing much was done. The   happenings\nduring 2008 could be an exception. Nonetheless, every inclement weather comes\nwith this missive that the economic\nstatus we enjoyed has evaporated like camphor and we are now a dependent state.\nDuring 2018-2019 winter the news came with a bang. From Mid-December 2018 to\nFebruary end 2019 for 35 days Jammu-Srinagar highway remained blocked. According\nto conservative estimates, it has cost Kashmir economy a loss of 3, 325 Crores,\nwhich is about 95 crores a day.  It\nwas for the ingenuity of our forefathers, who made optimum use of every raw\nmaterial available in the state that the state was not dependent on imports.\nAnd we were not only self-sufficient but earned big money from exports.\nIronically, the land that was self-sufficient in food grains and other\nessentials has been made utterly dependent on imports- so miserable is the\nsituation we are now dependent from collard green to an egg on everything from\noutside.  Because of our total\ndependence on imports we suffer a famine-like situation in Kashmir and other hilly\nareas even when highway gets blockade for two days.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1947, the import-export ratio of the state was\n1: 3, i.e. if we purchased goods from outside for one rupee and we sold good\nfor three rupees to people outside. Today, the situation is reverse the import\nand export ratio is 4:1, i.e. we buy goods from rupees 4 from outside and sell\ngoods worth rupee one in the outside market. Because of this imbalance, the\nstate is caught up in an economic morass.   The question arises\nhow and why the state slipped into a messy economic situation, lost its old\nstatus as a vibrant economy. During the first half of the twentieth century,\nthere was immense trade activity in the state \u2013 there was \u2018internal trade\u2019 and\n\u2018external trade\u2019. Different parts of the state depended upon each other for\nsupply of the things; this generated a lot of internal trade, and Srinagar was a\nvital trading centre that besides catering to the needs of areas within the\nvalley supplied to far of places like Gilgit, Chilas, Yasin, Chilas, Leh and\nBaltistan.  External Trade from\nKashmir was conducted through two routes leading to Chinese Turkistan, one Via\nGilgit and other via Leh. Trade was a binding factor between Central Asia and\nKashmir. After 1947, these routes were lost, and external trade activity\nslumped but proportionality it could not pick up to the same level through the\nBanihall Road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the scenario, as obtained in the state in 1947\ncollapsing of external trade could be a natural result, but ostensibly there\nwas no reason for the state losing its independent status. It may need a scientific\nstudy to identify the causes behind it. Nonetheless, there are a couple of\napparent cause for it, one introduction of \u2018political corruption\u2019 as state\npolicy, lacking entrepreneurship in the business community and wrong prioritisation\nat the governmental level as well as in the private sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One may not expect much from the state apparatus,\nbut the business community can play a significant role in making state once\nagain self-sufficient by cutting down imports and investing in sectors like\nessential commodities, medicines, higher and professional education and\nbuilding material. It is time for business houses, small and big to do some\nrethinking.   <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PUNCHLINE<\/p>\n

Self-Sufficiency And Problems Thereof <\/p>\n

By<\/p>\n

Z.G. Muhammad <\/p>\n

Economics has never been my cup of tea. I have no
\nclaim to have read and understood John Maynard Keynes, the man who through the sheer
\nbrilliance revolutionised the concept of economics. Moreover, through his \u2018Keynesian
\neconomics,\u2019 he established a sort of yardstick that subsequently defined all
\neconomists that came after him.   I have no claim to have read,
\ncomprehended and assimilated Marxian economics. Notwithstanding, decades back having
\nseen one of my friends translating Karl Marx\u2019s seminal work Das Kapital into my
\nmother tongue Koshur, despite finding the ideas quite convincing, I never
\nendeavoured to make a serious study of \u2018Das Kapital\u2019 or \u2018Dialectical
\nMaterialism\u2019. Equally, I am yet to assimilate \u2018Islamic Economics\u2019 as
\nencapsulated by Sayyid Abul A\u2019la Mawdudi in his scholarly work \u2018First
\nPrinciples of Islamic Economics\u2019 edited by one of world-renowned economist
\nProfessor Khurshid Ahmad. For a novice like me, even Professor Khurshid
\nexhaustive introduction to the book was enough to get a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[375,373,376,24],"class_list":["post-4142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir-talk","tag-central-asia-and-kashmir","tag-kashmir-economy","tag-silk-route-kashmir-econo","tag-z-g-muhammad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4143,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4142\/revisions\/4143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}