Rahul Gandhi said India can compete with China if it focuses on manufacturing.
Washington:
India, the US and other Western countries are struggling with unemployment, while China is not affected by it because it dominates global manufacturing, said opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, stressing the need to focus on manufacturing in India.
Speaking to students at the University of Texas at Dallas on Sunday, Gandhi said India has no skills shortage and could compete with China if it focused on manufacturing.
He also stressed the need to boost vocational training to bridge the gap between the business community and the education system, pointing to the “ideological capture” of the education system.
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Mr Gandhi is on a four-day unofficial trip to the US, during which he will interact with members of the Indian diaspora and youth with stops in Dallas, Texas and Washington DC. He also plans to meet lawmakers and senior US government officials during his visit to Washington DC that begins on Monday.
He arrived in Dallas on Saturday evening and was welcomed by dozens of members of the Indian-American community, led by prominent Congress leader Sam Pitroda and the president of the Indian National Overseas Congress in the US, Mohinder Gilzian.
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“The West has an employment problem. India has an employment problem… But many countries in the world do not have an employment problem. China certainly does not have an employment problem. Vietnam does not have an employment problem,” Gandhi said.
“If you look at the United States in the '40s, '50s and '60s, they were the center of global manufacturing. Everything that was made, (whether it was) cars, washing machines, (or) TVs, was all made in the United States. Manufacturing moved out of the United States. It went to Korea, it went to Japan. Eventually it went to China. If you look today, China dominates global manufacturing,” he said.
The West, America, Europe and India have given up the idea of manufacturing and handed it over to China.
“The act of production creates jobs. What we do, what the Americans do, what the West does, is we organize consumption… India has to think about the act of production and organizing production…”
“It is not acceptable for India to simply say, okay, production, what you call production or manufacturing, is the domain of the Chinese. It is the domain of the Vietnamese. It is the domain of Bangladesh,” Gandhi said.
He stressed the need to boost production.
“Until we do that, we are going to have high levels of unemployment. And frankly, that is not sustainable. So, you will see that if we continue on this path of forgetting about production, you will see huge social problems arising in India and in the United States and Europe. The polarization of our politics is because of this…” he added.
According to the leader of the opposition, there is no shortage of skills in India.
“A lot of people say India has a problem with skills. I don't think India has a problem with skills. I think… India has no respect for people who have skills,” he said.
Mr Gandhi said there was a need to link the education system with the business community through vocational training.
“Bridging that gap or connecting these two systems, skills and education, through vocational training is fundamental. I think the big problem with the education system at the moment is the ideological encapsulation, where ideology is fed through it…” he said.
He said he was confident that India can take on China if it focuses on manufacturing and respects skills more.
“I am absolutely convinced. States like Tamil Nadu have already shown it. It is not that Indian states have not done it. Pune has shown it. Maharashtra has shown it. So, it is being done, but it is not being done on the scale and with the coordination that is required,” Mr Gandhi said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published via a syndicated feed.)