In Manesar, 42 km from the PM’s bungalow on Race Course Road,large parts of the country’s manufacturing giant, Maruti, have been gutted. Theentire Japanese community of investors and others like them “ save, perhaps,round-trippers from Mauritius “ are pissed off. Never in their tumultuousinvestment relationship with India has a general manager-level officer beenlynched to death; a man called Awanish Kumar Dev, his body unrecognizable.
But not a wordfrom the PM, now juggling the hat as the nation’s CFO, busy as he is livingdown Pranab Mukherjee’s ghost.
What Industry andCommerce Minister Anand Sharma has said is to the effect that one incidentwon’t affect the investment attractions of India. Like hell it won’t! Is theman batting for China? Or is he unwittingly rubbing salt in the raw wounds ofthose invested in the India story?
So much forDelhi’s grip.
What’s Haryana,recently feted by the Prof Michael Porter-inspired Institute of Competiveness,as India’s “most innovation-driven” state, done for its marquee investor? Howabout a special investigation team (SIT) led by an assistant commissioner ofpolice (ACP) and six pot-belied juniors. Ha!
The state policecomprises of really busy blokes! A mere ACP to collect evidence, file a chargesheet, prosecute the gang of killers, in what surely is among the most gruesomecrimes in the history of shop floors of an Indian blue-chip company? That afterRC Bhargava, the Maruti chairman, has declared an indefinite lockout at Manesaruntil the murderers roam free?
Haryana’silliterate response poses a challenge in an unlikely quarter. I refer here toGujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
Suzuki already hasa signed agreement with Modi for a third facility in Mehsana (the first beingGurgaon and the other being Manesar). The foray to ModiLand, spread across 700acres, entails an investment of Rs 4,000 crore in the first phase of themanufacturing unit. This could mean 7,000 new jobs, a good dose of politicaltestosterone ahead of assembly elections at the end of the year.
Plus, cars aren’tproduced without vendors. Maruti and Modi are the best in the business to knowthat. So, while Haryana’s police babus play out their buffoonery, a raft ofMaruti ancillaries are certainly on Modi’s radar (an estimated employment ofthree lakh people is attributed to Maruti!). For those wondering how he willconvince land owners to part with their land, he’s perceived to be one CM in asea of political inertia who just might deliver land to projects he shepherdspersonally. Scenting this, there’s already a sudden rise in land prices aroundthe belt identified for the vendors.
To Haryana’s good luck, Suzuki is no fool to walk out in a huff. Sure, Suzukihas few options but to wait for tangible evidence of justice. It’ll have tokeep the negotiations warm with Modi, without annoying the prickly rulers atDelhi. The government of India does not have a single share in the company leftto twist the Japanese, but financial institutions have 12.67 percent (thepublic, by way of comparison, has only 2.47 percent). Plus, Suzuki has stakeswith New Delhi’s babus in motor cycles.
The site of acompletely burnt-down office complex is a public relations nightmare forHaryana and India. The lockout is as painful a blow, as are problems in theaftermath, not to mention other harebrained ideas in the regulatory works, astar-labelling system for cars for example, aimed to hit Maruti the most. Withthis happening to the boldest of Japanese investors, there’s a lot happening tomess up the mood of a notoriously cautious tribe.
