Say NO to FDI in the multi-brand retail sector

Please say NO to the proposed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the multi-brand retail sector. This move will have an adverse affect on small farmers by exploiting them through middle men.

The multi-national retail giants like Wal-Mart will definitely replace the local small retailers and kirana shops (see what happened in USA and Europe). Once the MNC retail giants replace the local retailers, there will be very few buyers for the farmers’ produce and the farmers will be forced to and sell for less money. So the once proudly living farmers will become slaves for these MNC retailers.

Companies like Con Agra will come and genetically modify our age old seeds and patent them and sell them back to our farmers. What a pity. We will again go back to the dark age of colonization.

Creation of the jobs with FDI is a myth. Most of the jobs created through this channel are nothing less than slavery. See Wal-Mart jobs for example in USA. They work so hard and paid the minimum wages. So in turn we are turning respectable small farmers and small retailers into daily wage workers.

This move will also have large affect on the food safety as MNC retailers will not be keen on the food safety but rather keen on making good profits. If they see that Indian goods are costlier they will not fear to import the goods from China. Is this what we want as proud Indians? Did we forget the Swadeshi Movement of Gandhiji?

I request each and every Indian, whether living in India or abroad, to raise a collective voice against the FDI in the retail sector and ask the honorable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to concentrate on domestic issues and corruption.