i've always contended that indian banks were nationalized to provide jobs to upper caste indians. that's the real priority sector. among all public sector employers, indian banks have the poorest record of compliance with reservation norms. the dalits and adivasis constitute less than 5% of all bank employees. the obcs, of course, would be much lower than that because the banks started shedding weight when mandal was brought in. tomorrow, if all these banks were to disappear, not one single truly marginalized individual in the country will really miss them.
why should they? those banks have never lent more than 10% of their total credit advances to the farmers, and most of those farmers were from the same social strata as the bankers, naturally. and when people from those same social strata tried to move into new, non-agricultural vocations, indian banks played a pivotal role in financing this transition. most of the other recipients of priority or directed credit, like entrepreneurs running small scale industrial units etc., were also from the same social strata.
85% of indians still do not have bank accounts: get that into your heads, progressive india.
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So are you trying to suggest that Banks would have been all inclusive if they remained private ? Unlikely. Even those 10% would not have been there.
But yes you are right about one point - In India many of the decisions whether it is nationalization or socialization or democratization they have undergone some sort of a brahminization before they were implemented.
hi
banks in India were nationalised for the same reason the west is undertaking quasi nationalisation now. so that a certain amount of 'faith' remains in the concept of money and banking.....
any benefits for the masses is a bonus, but it is not the primary reason.....
harini,
that's a very original observation, i like it a lot. what one'd have expected a marxist to say, almost.
'any benefits for the masses is a bonus, but it is not the primary reason'
but that's hindsight: nationalization was definitely an exercise in socialization and it was promoted as such.
marxist - no !
but, i am a realist....
you can give anything the cover of 'socialisation' - but the real reason will be 'confidence in the economy'. if people don't believe in 'money' and the 'money system' then you are going to have utter and total chaos... (more than we have now :). the system and confidence in the system has to be preserved....at all costs. it is the same reason that nations go to war on territory --- logically, it makes no sense - but, they do it to keep up the 'perception' of the nation :)
on a related topic , the British response to the crisis has been primarily that ... maintain confidence in the economy. if the government owns the bank (partly or fully) , it is perceived that the bank wont keel over, and banks and systems aren't swamped by people taking out their deposits. by assuaging the poor, the pensioner, the working class and the middleclass - the British have saved the system. On, the other hand the Americans in a bail out of the rich, have f***ed their system.
:)
correction...
Marx as sociology yes
Marx as economics no
if that makes sense :)
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