Mirroring India’s Future: The Decline of Retailers and
Farmers in Mexico
Arun Kumar
Chairperson and Sukhamoy Chakravarty Chair Professor,
CESP, SSS, JNU.
A computer systems analyst was the driver
of the taxi which took me from the airport to the hotel in Mexico city. A
cheerful English speaking man who talked about himself and his family’s woes in
the hour it took to cover the 30 kms. He wanted to know about the global economic
crisis so that he could figure out why things were bad in Mexico US
The taxi passed through many commercial and
residential areas but no small shops were visible. There were big malls, automobile
dealers, petrol stations, restaurants, pharmacy stores and car repair shops. I
wondered if they were inside the colonies. A friend who had been posted in the
Indian Embassy in the mid-1980s had mentioned that there were fruit stores
everywhere and one could make a meal of fruits in the evening but such shops were
no where in evidence. I speculated if this was the future of the Indian
metropolises.
The absence of small stores was perplexing but
more intriguing was the serious unemployment given that Mexico has been a part
of NAFTA since 1994 and which brought in much foreign investment, many
factories have relocated from the US to Northern Mexico to supply the US and
Canadian markets and so on. The city was bustling with cars and it is prosperous
compared to India
Old timers remember that Mexico city had
small stores till the mid 1980s. Only the organized sector stores survive now,
like, the Sanborn chain belonging to Mr. Slim, the richest man in the world. Sanborn
has had a unique model of a restaurant on the first floor and a gift shop,
pharmacy and other such conveniences on the ground floor. The young I talked to
did not remember any time when there were corner stores in the residential
colonies. From the Hotel window, perched 8 floors up, I could see malls but no
small stores. Sears, Walmart, McDonalds and so on were all there like, anywhere
in the USA. In residential colonies, I did see a few small stores but most of
them were American `Seven Eleven’ stores. But, there are pavement stalls and markets
where the poor purchase their necessities. It was ironic to see the workers in
ties from the malls cross the street to eat at the pavement stalls – perhaps they
could not afford to eat in the mall.
On a visit to the charming centre of town
it was refreshing to see streets lined with small stores. My escort told me that
many people came here to shop because it was cheaper here then in the malls. I
found a sweet shop named Cellaya established in 1874, much like our Halwai
shops. It had the equivalent of kaju, pista and badam barfis, but very
expensive.
I went outside Mexico city to Teotihuacan
to see the Pyramids. The huge pyramid of the Sun god is apparently a few times
larger than the biggest Egyptian pyramids. It was a part of an ancient city
2,000 years back which was over 3 miles long and had more than 1.5 lakh people.
All this was awe inspiring but it was tiring because it involved hours of
walking and climbing up and down. At the end of it all we went to the
neighbouring town to eat. At its entrance over the road there was a beautiful
arch which announced `Teotihuacan Pueblo con Encanto’. There the streets were
lined with small stores.
The next day I visited the village
Tlalnepantla in Morelos. I counted dozens of small shops for a population of a
few thousand. This is a revolutionary village. Alvaro, our host, was an
economics graduate who settled down here 40 years back. He does Nopal (cactus)
cultivation along with the rest of the villagers. His small garden at the house
had trees bearing guava, avacados, lime, lukat and so on. He has successfully experimented
with creating a village republic. It was amazing to see the hilly village
surrounded by 4,000 hectares of Nopal cultivation. Even more breathtaking was the
clear view of the distant volcano from which a plume of smoke emanated.
The village rejected the corrupt political
parties. They selected their own leader and did not recognize the president of
the municipality, a party man. The government sent in troops declaring Alvaro
and others as terrorists and they had to go underground. There were protests
all over Mexico Mexico
The farmers are upset with the USA and
NAFTA. They complained that the free market had enabled subsidized food to come
from the US
Worse, in Northern Mexico where investments
from the US have poured in, Mafia has taken over and there is lawlessness. There
the state seems to be withering away. Unemployed youth joins the Mafia. There
is drug trafficking and illegal migration of youth into the US
The proximity to the US, free trade with it
and the investments from there have instead of solving Mexico’s problems led to
a deepening crisis of unemployment, decline of traditional agriculture and to the
demise of small retailers in metro cities. I wondered whether what I was seeing
in Mexico was India fast forwarded twenty years, when the Metros will see lots of
cars and traffic jams, unemployment, malls but few small retail stores and agriculture
in crisis. Small stores are likely to survive in small towns and villages.
Our crisis is likely to be worse than
Mexico’s since we do not border the largest economy in the world where our
youth could illegally migrate nor are we likely to get investment in per capita
terms matching what Mexico has got nor do we have petroleum or tourism income
to prop us up. So, does Mexico Mexico
No comments:
Post a Comment