Fair to Promote Swadeshi Goods

“Made in India,” the famous concept that got a fresh lease of life with Alisha Chenoy’s immensely popular pop-album a few years ago, is set to grab the headlines once again next year in January during the “Bharat or Swadeshi Mela.”

Organized by Center for Bharatiya Marketing Development (CBMD), a unit of Swadeshi Jagran Foundation, a nongovernmental organization striving to “empower the nation” by strengthening its economy and “safeguard it in the global arena,” the fair is aimed at “promoting a self-reliant India.”

The main objective of the fair, says the CBMD, is to “rejuvenate India to an economically self-sufficient and culturally vibrant nation, and make the country a major player in international trade.”

The CBMD claims the mela is an effort to “revive and promote the fundamental concept of Swadeshi (that which is natural and native to the country).”

Swadeshi Jagran Manch Secretary and organizer of the fair Murlidhar Rao told India Abroad News Service that the fair will stimulate a patriotic sentiment among Indians, urging them to give preferential treatment to domestic goods in order to create a positive groundwork for the nation to emerge as a powerful economy.

Rao says the present need of the country is to generate employment opportunities, which can be achieved by creating a vibrant domestic small-scale sector. And the fair, he says, will try to achieve just this.

The exhibition, which will be put up at the Pragati Maidan in New Delhi from Jan. 25 to 30 next year, will highlight the achievements and capabilities of everything Indian-in-make, in a bid to popularize the spirit of self-reliance.

The fair seeks to “unearth the potential” of the corporate, cottage and small-scale industries “as the nation’s largest employment generators.”

It will be an “attempt to provide a useful platform for interaction between the producer and the consumer, to infuse faith and confidence in Swadeshi brands, products and services, with the aim of helping Indian industry to improve and give consumers an indigenous and better choice.”

The CBMD claims that Swadeshi is “not autarky, but a global alternative which accepts only need-based globalization, which restores economics to its original definition of practical human needs, frugality, savings, etc.” According to the SJM’s Rao, the whole concept of the fair is not to oppose globalization, but only to promote among the Indian consumer the principle of preferring the domestic to the foreign, and thus contain the onslaught of multinational companies.

The Swadeshi Mela is being organized to “accelerate the process of internal liberalization, and educate the consumer of his obligatory role as a citizen to strengthen Indian industrial base by preferring the nation’s services and brands.”

The display profile of the fair ranges from consumer durables, industrial goods to India-based products and services relating to Information Technology, electronics, engineering, chemicals, textiles, handicrafts, science and technology, media, defense, agriculture, food processing, infrastructure, tourism, jewelry, leather, healthcare, and even “social and cultural life.”

Besides the display of various indigenous products and services, the fair includes seminars and conferences featuring eminent personalities from the industry.

The special feature is the cultural event “Bharat Gaurav,” which heralds the fair. The inaugural-day show will be purely on the Swadeshi line to promote Indian culture.

Noted artists like Lata Mangeshkar and Daler Mehndi are scheduled to sing an extravaganza of old and patriotic songs at the mela, while dance-dramas will be performed by eminent classical dancers like Kelucharan Mahapatra, Yamini Krishnamurthy, and Geeta Chandran.

Acclaimed music maestros such as Bhimsen Joshi, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Ravishankar, and M.S. Subbulakshmi are also expected to participate in the cultural extravaganza.

Regional folk dances, street plays, live demonstration by weavers, potters and other artisans are part of the grand Indian mela. Organizers say the cultural show, which has been conceptualized by noted film-director Pehlaj Nihalani, will be telecast live on the state-owned television network Doordarshan.

The fair-fare also includes films and food festival, which promises to be interesting with participation by “different” states.

The Swadeshi or Bharat Mela, with its “vision of self-reliance,” promises to help us give rebirth to the “Golden Sparrow” that India was once called because of its legendary prosperity.

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Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has inaugurated the much-hyped Swadeshi Mela, an exhibition organized by a non-governmental organization to propagate the concept of “Swadeshi,” or “Made in India.”

Inaugurating the fair on Jan. 25, Vajpayee said the exhibition was aimed at making India the “Golden Sparrow” it once was in terms of economic well-being, and the fair was an attempt to portray the achievements of the Indian industry, both private and public sector.

The fair, being held at the Pragati Maidan fair grounds in Delhi from Jan. 25 to 30, has been organized by the Center for Bharatiya Marketing Development (CBMD), a wing of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch (SJM), the economic unit of the right-wing Sangh Parivar.

The organizers claim that the fair is aimed at promoting a “self-reliant India,” and to “empower the nation by strengthening its economy and safeguarding it in the global arena.” But the main idea is to promote ‘Swadeshi,’ which literally means ‘of one’s own country,’ but has of late become synonymous with economic nationalism.

The CBMD has categorically stated that the fair is an attempt to “rejuvenate India to an economic self-sufficient and culturally vibrant nation and make the country a major player in international trade, and revive the fundamental concept of Swadeshi.”